North to North Carolina

Somehow, I think this is just tempting the
next hurricane!

With our fuel tanks full of the cheapest fuel around, and our bellies full of local seafood, we again headed north on Wednesday June 4.  We cruised through the “Rock Pile” past Myrtle Beach at low tide & saw how narrow the ICW was, and how suddenly it shallows to nothing.  What surprised me is how stretched out Myrtle Beach is – about 30 miles along the coast with plenty of tourist traps sprinkled in

Myrtle Beach had miles and miles of trailer parks.

North of Myrtle Beach, we considered going on the outside into the Atlantic for our run to Southport (on the Cape Fear River), but re-considered that they call it “Cape Fear” for a reason.  Actually, the winds were too high in the ocean, and the seas were 3-4 feet – not exactly what you’d call “Pleasure Boating”.  So we slugged it out in the ICW going through all the shallow spots at idle speed.

At Southport Marina, a 95' yacht had 6 horns
plus a whistle.  I guess you can do almost anything
if you throw enough money at it!

As we passed one boat, he called us on the VHF radio to say that we had a “red liquid” spilling out of our port stern!  Now, those who know diesel engines will know that the “red liquid” can only be marine diesel fuel.  I scrambled down into the engine room to realize that my fuel return valves from the engines, were routed back to the aft fuel tanks (instead of being routed back to the side tanks), and they were so full that they were spilling out the overflow vent.  So much for all of our cheap fuel we had aboard!

Avast, ye landlubber!!  Pirates along the ICW !!

We made our marina in Southport N.C. and spent an extra day there while a cold front came through.  Besides, Sue had some good Yankee greenbacks that she had to spend yet at the local stores.  A highlight here was the free weather and navigation briefing conducted by a local volunteer.  He used to be a Navy meteorologist, and in fact served under our other friend now in Daytona Beach, who was C.O. of the meteorology office for the US Atlantic Fleet.  Our Power Squadron friends in New Orleans know very well of whom I speak!

The best part of this photo is the huge USMC flag
on the bow of the "tourist" boat!  The Marines were
no match for the pirates that day.

We departed Southport, trying to time the tide and currents, but ended up with more head currents, sometimes reaching 2.5 mph.  Kinda screws up you fuel economy.  The ICW in this area takes you under 3 bridges which all have restrictions on their opening – only on the hour.  We got to sit & wait over an hour among the 3 bridges.  Our highlight of the day was when a pirate ship attacked a boatload of US Marines right in front of us!!  I wasn’t sure who to cheer for!!  (Sorry, Clint).  It was all for the tourists, but the pirate ship was firing “cannon”, cut right in front of us, and boarded the “tourist” boat.

But within Camp Lejeune, the Marines are all business!
The ICW is closed when our military gets serious.

We anchored that night within the boundaries of the USMC base Camp Lejeune.  Pleasure boats can stop there to anchor, but you’d better not even think of stepping foot on the base!  The next morning we had to call the Range Safety Officer for permission to continue on the ICW through Camp Lejeune, because they routinely conduct live firing there from artillery, offshore Navy vessels, and aircraft bombing/strafing.

We made a safe passage through Camp Lejeune, eastward towards Morehead City N.C.  Our only “oops” was when we hit bottom at low tide, even when we were still within the ICW channel.  I saw the depth sounder counting down, put the boat into neutral, hit softly, and was able to back off the shoaling.  Like the saying goes, “There are only two types of boat owners: those who’ve run aground, and those who have yet to run aground.”

At Morehead City, we saw the "Wind Horse", which
was built in New Zealand & cruised most of the world.
It has been featured in many boating magazines.
It had been recently purchased by a new owner.

We spent just one night in Morehead City, where we found ourselves in the middle of a blue marlin fishing tournament, with huge Sportfisherman yachts all around us.  Still, we were able to walk into town to spend some of our limited retirement income.  On Sunday we took advantage of absolutely beautiful weather from a big high pressure system sitting over us, and cruised about 45 miles to an anchorage out in the middle of nowhere.  We had no cell phone or wifi coverage, so we enjoyed the peace and quiet watching all the jellyfish float by.

I guess that the Army Corpse of Engineers can't maintain
the ICW markers, so some creative soul has taken over.

The next day was a short run to Dowry Creek Marina, near Belhaven N.C.  As the morning wore on, the winds started increasing, partly due to the daily offshore breeze from the ocean.  As we tried to back into our slip, the winds were 15G20 from exactly the wrong direction.  All of the canvas enclosures on our boat made it into a sail boat on which you can’t take down the sails.  Of course, the slip next to us had a sailboat with a long bowsprit sticking our past the pilings, which further complicated things.  After 4 attempts at docking stern-in, we decided to go bow-in, which still took 2 attempts.  Finally, after we got off the boat, we found the slip was only 16' wide, and our beam is 15.5'.  No wonder we had problems.  At least we remembered to “Never approach a dock at a speed faster than that which you want to hit it”.





Gee, do you think Obama will say that this guy doesn't
really "need" a house this big, and then try to put 3 or
4 more families to live with him?  After all, this guy can
certainly "afford" to pay more taxes!

We’ll stay at this marina for a week while we retrieve our car from Myrtle Beach (at least that’s where we THINK we left it), do some chores around the boat, and plan our final leg to the Chesapeake Bay.  We’re only 136 miles from it now.  When we started cruising this spring, we started almost 1000 miles from the Chesapeake.  Even “crawlers” will eventually get to their destination!