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