Carolina Beach, NC to St Augustine, FL, AICW mm 777.7

April 8-10, 2017

We had been weighing the pros and cons of “going on the outside” – or offshore in the ocean – versus cruising the ICW to Florida.  For us, the pros were getting to Florida quicker (44 hours vs 11 days), better fuel economy, less money spent on marinas, less stressful navigation (fewer narrow channels, bridges, shoaling, etc to worry about), and Adventure.  The cons were no protection from wind and weather, having to do 2 overnights with just the two of us, and no shore excursions for Sasha until we reached our destination.  Rob had been monitoring forecasted wave heights at www.passageweather.com, and it looked like there was a good window for an ocean passage starting on Saturday, April 8.  He figured that if we could leave the Cape Fear River inlet around 1 p.m. and cruised at our typical 7-8 mph, we would reach St Augustine inlet around daybreak on Monday.  If the sea conditions got unexpectedly rough, we figured we could always bail out at Charleston, SC, or Brunswick, GA.

Frisbee at sunrise on Carolina Beach

We got up early Saturday morning and took Sasha to shore for her morning walk and Frisbee session on the beach.  We wanted to get to Joyner Marina, just a short distance from the mooring field, to fuel up and get our dinghy cover secured.  It takes us a while to fuel because our tanks tend to burp fuel if we go too fast, so we wanted to be able to take our time.  There wasn’t much wind but the current coming in from Snow’s Cut sure was ripping!  Fortunately, our approach put our bow into the current, and then when we were ready to leave around 9:45 a.m., it had eased up a bit.

Boats in the shipping lanes near the Cape Fear inlet

Once we came out of Snow’s cut into the Cape Fear River, the current turned in our favor.  Since Wilmington, NC, is a pretty busy seaport, we thought we might run into some commercial traffic, but we only met a couple of tows.  Before we knew it, we were through the inlet and out in the North Atlantic Ocean!  On the recommendation of a local TowBoat US captain, we went out through a smaller side channel rather than having to go out in the main shipping lanes, and this also shaved a little distance off our route as well.

Stern view of the Cape Fear inlet

300 plus miles from inlet to inlet

Our route on our Garmin chartplotter

 We had a pretty smooth and uneventful cruise for the most part.  We saw dolphins from time to time, of course, but we were surprised to see quite a few birds, some seemingly all alone, even 30-50 miles out from land.

Dolphins always seem to have so much fun swimming at our bow

This group of small birds was feeding on something miles from shore

We passed most boats and ships at a distance but occasionally had to alter course a bit when our radar and our eyes suggested that one would come a bit too close for comfort – on the ocean that means within 1-2 miles.

Catamaran on the North Atlantic at sunset

Yellow beacon out in the ocean.  Our chart says they are privately owned.

Large container ship passing fairly close

In a hurry to get somewhere

The first night, we took turns keeping watch, with the off-watch person sleeping on the loveseat in the salon (behind the helm on our boat) so as to be close enough to wake and help if needed.  We also took naps the next day so that we would be more rested for the next night.  Part of this was because we expected the second night to be a little rougher, because the wave heights were predicted to get a little bigger as we approached St Augustine inlet.  They actually turned out to be bigger than forecast – and on our beam, of course -- so our last 4-6 hours were pretty rough.  Our microwave, which we thought was wedged in pretty tightly in its cubby, ended up on the galley floor…along with some other items which had never fallen before!

We had been cruising faster than we had thought we would, so our arrival time at the St Augustine inlet was now about 2-3 hours before dawn.  We had thought about slowing down so that we could arrive at daybreak, but once the seas started getting rougher, we thought that we should just try to get in as soon as possible.  We thought about going in at Jacksonville, but since it is such a busy seaport and we saw quite a few large ships around, we thought that going a couple hours more to St Augustine would be better.  When we reached the inlet, we would be turning so that the seas would be more on our stern, so the ride would be smoother in some respects.  Since a following sea tends to push a boat around a bit, we would have to be ready to counter-steer to compensate for this.

Large container ship at night.  At least it is very well lit up.

There was some sort of workboat near the mouth of the inlet, and we thought it might be a shrimp boat going out fishing.  In hindsight, we should have radioed it to ask about the inlet markers and conditions, but we had talked to a local Towboat US captain who had told us that the inlet was clearly marked and to favor the red markers.  What he didn’t mention and we didn’t think to ask since we expected to come in during daylight, was that there were unlit red can markers as well as lighted ones.  We really should have expected this to be the case since the charts don’t have a permanent channel marked and say instead that changing conditions require local knowledge in order to navigate safely.

The moon was nearly full and bright during both of our nights on the ocean.

So to make a long, stressful story short, due to the rough conditions we missed seeing 2 unlit red cans after the first couple lighted ones, so we ran aground.  Rob was out on deck with a spotlight, so he quickly came inside to take over driving.  For some reason, he is better at getting us out of tight spots sometimes even though I usually do most of the close maneuvering.  I finally found the 2 red cans with the spotlight, and after several horrific moments, we were back in the channel again.  I say horrific because, as bad as it is to run aground during the day, it is at least 10 times worse at night in fairly rough sea conditions.  Fortunately, there were no terrible engine noises or vibrations and no bilge alarms came on as we navigated to an anchorage close to the Bridge of Lions, so this helped us to calm down.  Once we got anchored out of the channel behind red marker 6, we checked all of the bilges and the engine shafts, and everything looked ok.  Whew!  Time to get some much needed sleep!

We slept about 3-4 hours and then began squaring the boat away a bit in preparation for moving to the St Augustine Municipal Marina fuel dock to unload our scooter.  Check out time for the mooring field is 11 a.m., so we figured that we wouldn’t be able to get to our assigned mooring before that time.  I hailed the marina a few minutes after 11 and was told that I should come through the bridge at the 11:30 opening since it doesn’t open at noon (on the weekdays).  We quickly pulled up anchor and headed to the bridge, finding that we could pass under without an opening at the current water level.  There was quite a bit of wind and current pushing toward the fuel dock, so we had no trouble getting tied up to unload the scooter.  Getting back off was another story, and on the second attempt, we made it off safely and got to our assigned mooring, #28, without further ado.  Rob put on his scuba gear and looked over the bottom of the boat for damage.  Aside from the expected lack of paint on the bottom of the keel near the bow, he didn't see or feel any other signs of damage from our encounter with the bottom of the inlet.  Now we could really relax and enjoy the beautiful weather and scenery!

Another rite of passage, another lesson learned, and we are so much the richer for it.  I know that God is always with us, and I thank Him for giving us the tools, skills, and grace to handle what comes.

Beautiful sunset on the North Atlantic Ocean

Sneads Ferry, NC to Carolina Beach mooring field, AICW 297.1

April 5-8, 2017 

Even though we only had 48 miles to go to get to Carolina Beach, we still planned to leave Sneads Ferry fairly early to take advantage of the longer daylight hours.  For Sasha’s morning walk and obligatory Frisbee session, there is a nice fenced-in grassy area near a house on the Swan Point Marina grounds.

Lorelei IV docked at Swan Point Marina, Sneads Ferry, NC

Nice grassy field for Sasha

It was a very nice day for cruising – warm but a little cloudy with a nice breeze.  We run the engines at about 1000 rpm’s, which generally means we cruise at 6-8 mph if the tide is against us, and 8-10 mph if the tide is with us.  We generally use 6-6.5 gallons of fuel per hour at this speed.  The scenery was pretty, and we saw enough boats, both local and other cruisers, that it kept the day from being too routine.

These people really like pink

Of the 3 lift and swing bridges that we passed through today, we only had to have first one, the Surf City Swing Bridge with a vertical clearance of 12 ft, opened for us.  Even though we could see the bridge and hear boats requesting to pass through at the 9 a.m. opening, we knew that we would be 5-10 minutes too late at our normal cruising speed.  Instead of maintaining our speed and having to wait at the bridge, we slowed down so that we would reach it closer to the next opening at 10.

Rob at the helm with our new autopilot in control

The next two bridges were the Figure Eight Island Swing bridge and the Wrightsville Bascule bridge, both with listed vertical clearances of 20 ft.  We consider our vertical clearance to be 20-20.5 ft, but we thought that we remembered having plenty of clearance at both bridges when we had come north last summer.  Sure enough, even though the gauges only showed 18-19 ft of clearance, we had 3-4 ft to spare when we passed underneath both of them.

There were several dredging operations going on in or near the ICW near a couple of the inlets close to Carolina Beach, but temporary marker buoys clearly marked the working channel in these areas.

Large dredge on the ICW

It seemed like no time at all, and we arrived at the Carolina Beach Mooring Field.  Even though reservations aren’t technically required, since it is the busy season for cruisers moving north and we wanted to stay for several days, we used the Dockwa app to make our reservations for a mooring ball.  There are 9 mooring balls, which can accommodate boats up to 55 ft, but 2 of the mooring balls didn’t have pennants.  Apparently, new ones had been ordered but had yet to come in, so the mooring field manager told us that he would come run a line for one of them if we couldn’t find a mooring ball with a pennant.  There were 2 open mooring balls that did have pennants on them – one in the middle of the main line of moorings and the other at the edge relatively close to shallow water.

Since we prefer to stay away from shallow water if there is a choice, we went to pick up the mooring in the middle.  While Rob was trying to direct me close to the mooring ball, a guy on the boat next to it called to Rob that he didn’t think we should take that one.  Apparently, the thimble (plastic or metal eye) had broken on the pennant and the bare loop at the end had become worn.  The gentleman told Rob that when he had reported this to the manager, someone had come out and had made a temporary repair with duct tape.  Since 30-40 mph winds were forecast in the next day or two, the gentleman didn’t think we should trust our boat to this line.  If we moved to one of the remaining moorings that weren’t near the shallow water, we would have to run our own line to the ball since the only other ones left were the ones that were missing pennants.  Because of this, we decided to pick up the mooring with the duct-taped loop anyways and to run an extra line to act as a backup pennant.  That way, if the repaired loop should fail, we would still be secured to the mooring ball.

That night a severe storm system with high winds did roll through the area, but our lines stayed secure.  Although the system caused some tornadoes and flooding in South Carolina and some of the Gulf states, by the time it reached Carolina Beach, it had broken up a bit.  We had a lot of rain and wind and a little hail, but the mooring field is in a fairly protected area so it wasn’t bad at all.

A common position for cruising canines

Carolina Beach seems like a nice beach town, and we wouldn’t mind coming back sometime for a longer stay.  Dogs are allowed on the main beach before 9 a.m. and after 5 p.m., but you can also go to Freeman Park at the north end where they are allowed all the time.  One of the dinghy docks for the mooring field was very close, so it was no trouble at all getting to shore for Sasha’s beach play times.  There is also supposed to be a city dock at the south end of Myrtle Grove Sound (where the mooring field is located), but it is currently under repair after being damaged by Hurricane Matthew.  It is a bit of a ride from the mooring field, but it is closer to restaurants and stores so would be handy once it is repaired.

The water was a bit cool, but Sasha didn't mind at all

We usually visit the local Ace Hardware and manage to find something that we need

Our friends, Reuel and Pam Sample, who we met while docked in New Bern, had taken their boat to a boatyard in nearby Wilmington, in order to do a major refit.  They are staying with Reuel’s brother and sister-in-law while their boat is on the hard, and they invited us out to the house for dinner on Thursday night.  Since we didn’t have a vehicle, Reuel picked us up at Mona Black Marina, which was graciously allowing dinghy dockage from the mooring field while the city docks are being repaired.  It was a nice relaxing evening with good food and conversation.  Pam had mentioned wanting to learn how to sew a couple of times before, so I invited her out to the boat on Friday for a lesson.  I have both a conventional and industrial sewing machine onboard, so I could show her the differences with regard to sewing more heavy duty fabrics.  She caught on very quickly, so I have no doubt that she can figure out how to manage the projects she has in mind.

Too soon our visit was over and it was time to take her back to shore.  She is a professional photographer and offered to take some pictures of Lorelei IV with the wide-angle lens that snaps onto her cell phone.  I have included one of the amazing pictures below!

Lorelei IV moored at Carolina Beach (pic courtesy of Pam Murph)

I’ll take the opportunity to say again that it is the people that we have met and the new friends we have made that have been the best part of this new adventure in our lives.  Steve and Liana on sailboat Silhouette – you can follow their adventures at www.svsilhouette.net -- cast off their lines in December, making their way through the Caribbean on their way to Panama to work with Floating Doctors this coming winter.  Eventually, they will go through the Panama Canal and set sail across the Pacific.  Once Reuel and Pam on sailboat September Winds finish their refit– you can follow them at www.overunderexpeditions.com -- they will be headed to the Chesapeake Bay and then to St Thomas, Virgin Islands, where they plan to do charters on their boat.  David and Mona on motor vessel Mad Hatteras are another couple we hope to run into again sometime.  We met them in March after we returned to New Bern from Quincy, and we have a lot in common since we both have Hatteras motor yachts.  There are many others, of course, with whom we have swapped stories, given and taken advice and tips, given and accepted a bit of help here and there, or just shared friendly greetings.  In this fluid community of boaters and cruisers, you just never know who you might run into again or who might become your neighbor for a time, and that is just part of the fun and adventure.

New Bern, NC to Sneads Ferry, NC, AICW mm 247

April 3 & 4, 2017

We had planned to be back down in Florida in November 2016, but between one thing and another, we didn’t end up leaving New Bern until yesterday.  We had also planned to have our boat hauled out in Florida for a bottom job and insurance survey, but since we stayed in New Bern longer than planned, we went ahead and hauled out on March 13^th at Bridgeton Boatworks.  We had not planned on hauling out until the 15^th, but we hauled out a couple days early because the winds and water levels were more favorable than they were predicted to be on the 15^th.  Weather is always a factor in decisions on boats!

After the boatyard did the sanding, Rob painted the bottom and running gear himself.  He used a hard anti-fouling paint on the running gear since we hadn’t had very good luck with just using ablative paint there, and 2 coats of ablative paint on the rest of the bottom.

In the slings so than Rob could paint where the jack stands were

Hard paint on all metals part and new zincs where needed.  Zincs decreased corrosion of other metal parts by attracting stray electricity to themselves first.

We could have splashed back in the water a little earlier than April 3^rd, but I had a two week job in Daytona at Halifax Health Center that didn’t finish up until the morning of April 1^st.  There was no reason for Rob to try to single-hand the boat back to New Bern Grand Marina since we planned to head south as soon as I was done with my short contract anyways.

Monday, April 3^rd turned out to be a great day to be splashed back in the water and to start cruising south.  It was nice and clear with only a light breeze, so before we knew it, we were on our way!

Our friend, Captain Ray Newcomb of Second Noelle, had been telling us that we really would appreciate having autopilot.   After experiencing the benefits of one when we helped our friend, Jim, take his 58’ Bertram to Isla Mujeres, Mx, we decided to go ahead and get one from Garmin that would work well with our existing navigation system.  Rob had planned to have it installed in Florida if we hauled out there, but since we would be delayed getting there, he decided to install most of it himself, with the help of a local Garmin-approved technician.  He mainly wanted the technician to double-check his planned placement of the components, to install the hydraulic lines, and to help with software setup if necessary.  While the technician seem to have general knowledge of the system, he did not seem very sure of himself with regard to the specifics of our boat.  After one of the hydraulic lines that he installed kept leaking and he admitted to installing one of the lines incorrectly, Rob didn’t bother to call him after he failed to show up to correct the problem when he said he would.

If you ever need anything electronic, be sure to check with Scott Bickwid, of Scott Bickwid Consulting and Supplies, Coca Beach, FL.  Even if he doesn’t end up installing whatever product he sells you, he is available by phone to help you troubleshoot issues.  Rob figured out that the technician had not installed the shadow drive correctly, confirmed it with Scott, and followed his advice to just detach the wiring to it.  Apparently, many systems don’t have a component like the shadow drive which disengages the autopilot if the captain takes the wheel, so we would just have to remember to put the autopilot on standby whenever we feel the need to steer manually.

After we passed under the highway bridge on the Neuse River and got to a fairly wide spot with plenty of water, we had to perform the Sea Trial setup of our autopilot.  This entailed turning in a circle to calibrate the compass and performing a couple of cruising runs so that the autopilot could calibrate itself to our boat.  It only took about 15-20 minutes and then we were ready to use it!

Look, Mom, no hands!

The Neuse River is pretty wide with good depths once you get a little ways past the highway bridge at New Bern, so it is a good place for a first autopilot run.  Once we were approaching Adams Creek and our first real auto-turn, we were excited and nervous to see how it would handle that.  It was almost anticlimactic since it went so smoothly, but now it would be handling the curves and twists of the creek so we couldn’t relax yet!  Needless to say, the autopilot keeps our plotted course better than we can by hand, but it isn’t good at avoiding hazards, such as markers, buoys, and other boats, when our course line isn’t perfect.  We still have to pay attention and to take over from time to time in order to navigate some areas safely, but it sure makes for a more pleasant cruise to not have to hand steer all of the time.

Rob programmed in the course (purple line)

The autopilot keeps the boat on the programmed course.

Rob does all of the planning for our routes each day, because he is so much better at it than I am.  We both agreed that it would be nicer to have shorter days while we cruise the ICW, and that if we saw a good weather window for cruising out in the Atlantic from Wilmington to Brunswick, GA or St Augustine, FL, we would take it.  So, our first planned stop was just a 38 mile cruise to Jarrett Bay Boatworks, Core Creek, NC, where we would fuel up and stay for the night.

Beautiful water frontage homes

This barge looks like a mobile lighthouse.

Jarrett Bay Boatworks builds sportfishing boats and has a huge boatyard which can handle very large boats.  You can have them do whatever work you need done on your boat, or you can do it yourself.  Their fuel dock has fairly easy entry and they have enough dock space to accommodate a fair number of boats for overnight dockage even though that isn’t their primary focus.  There was enough wind and current that docking wasn’t just routine, but fortunately for me, the wind was blowing Lorelei toward the dock rather than away, so once I was out of the current, it was no trick at all to get her in for a port side tie.  Sasha had plenty of time for 2 frisbee sessions – one at a large grassy spot at the end of road that leads to the boatyard from the landside and the other by the marina office.

Docked at Jarrett Bay Boatworks

This lift can handle boats up to 200 tons!  The tires are taller than me (I'm 5'3").

We were concerned about the storm system that had produced severe weather conditions in some parts of south, but it broke up for the most part as it got to our area.  We had quite a bit of rain starting in the late evening, and Rob said that it blew pretty hard around 4 a.m. as well.  The wind settled down a tiny bit by 7 a.m. when we were ready to leave, so we had no trouble getting off of the dock and on our way.

Boy, were we glad to have the autopilot when we reached the open waterways near Morehead City!  Both the 20+ mph wind and the wind driven current were hitting us on the beam, but the autopilot had no trouble making the adjustments to keep us on our course.  Hand steering would have been more physically and mentally stressful for sure!  We had to text an apology to our friend, Captain Ray, for laughing at him for whining when his autopilot broke on our Gulf crossing in fall 2015.  After just a day and half of having the autopilot, both Rob and I agreed that we wouldn’t want to be without it.  I know, I know:  we are turning into high maintenance cruising wimps.

We did have to do some hand steering where the ICW channel narrows south of Morehead City, either because our course line wasn’t plotted precisely enough or because we don’t have the best chart version to provide the autopilot with more precise tracking.  Otherwise, we would have been closer to shallow water and markers than we were comfortable with.

Nice looking shrimp boat

Shallow water just off the ICW channel

We had to go through the Marine Corps firing range right before we reached our destination for the night, but we found that the shoal where we ran aground on our trip north had been dredged and the channel markers moved to mark the new wider channel.  Hooray!

Watch Tower at the north entrance of the firing range

We made sure we didn't see any flashing

Targets on the firing range

We did meet a boat right at the spot, so we graciously allowed it to go first as the sacrificial lamb ;).

The scene of our first grounding

There must have been maneuvers going on at the base, because we saw lots of activity on land, in the water, and in the air.

2 fast boats loaded with troops and machine guns

This Osprey flew pretty closely overhead at times

We saw these amphibious carriers on both sides of the ICW

We had to wait a half hour for the next opening of the Onslow Beach swing bridge, but since Rob had planned shorter days, we were in no hurry at all.  Oh wait, I mean it was such a chore to sit there with the sun shining, a nice breeze, good music, and great scenery that everyone should just feel so sorry for us.

By 2:30 pm, we were docked at Swan Point Marina, Sneads Ferry, NC.  We had been there before and prefer to stay on the face dock on the ICW, because it is easy to get in and out.  The wind did tend to blow the boat off of the dock while we were trying to get our lines secured, but I finally figured out that I needed to put the wheel hard to port while engaging the port engine in reverse to help get the stern over to the dock once we had a pivot line on.

Sasha waits so patiently for her walk once we are docked

We really like these shorter cruising days.  We actually have time to really relax before we have to get the necessary chores of supper and then making sure we are ready for the next day’s adventures.