Thursday, April 30, 2009

All good things must end --- DARN IT!!

Darn – all good things must come to an end and this is the end of our 2008/2009 Bahamas cruise. Gosh seems rather abrupt now. We made it in at 2pm today to Slip 34 in SailCraft Marina in Oriental, NC.

On the bright side we had a great welcome from a familiar face – Gaylen from our former marina – Matthews point.. He was cruising the canal in his fishing boat and spotted us. Gosh it’s great to arrive with a familiar face. When I returned from my 2005/2006 cruise it was Bill Brinson that greeted me at the dock at Matthews Point.,

We had a pretty nice night at Cape Lookout until the wind piped up to 20 kts for awhile out of the NE – was not forecast of course!!. That is the only bad direction out there. Fortunately it didn’t last more than an hour and we had a quiet night. This morning I was so happy I chose to go in there after that long day yesterday rather than crowd into anchorage and then had to deal with all that wind last night.

We had a nice cruise of 33 miles from Cape Lookout to Oriental and sailed the last 2 miles in 5kts of wind. Wasn’t much but certainly welcomed when entering a new slip for the first time – darn the water levels seem low in here. I hope this is not the norm otherwise it seems a very nice protected marina.

We pushed hard these last several days and made a lot of miles to get home but now the feeling is bittersweet.

I had been getting tired of the long days, the questionable anchorages, the fluky weather, the shallow spots in the ICW, the bridge openings, etc. I really just want to tie up to a safe dock for awhile and just veg out. Now that I have enjoyed 4 hours of that – veg out NO --. I’m not sure this is what I really wanted. Hopefully the really crappy weather forecast for the coast this weekend will make me happy to be at the dock.

We plan to just clean boat for a few days and our Son Andy will come down Saturday to retrieve us and take us home on Sunday.

Until then we will explore – by foot and bike – our new second home here in Oriental, NC.

I’ll post one more blog in a week or two to summarize and extol the cruise. Maybe add a few pictures like Miss Kalik of MAY!!

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

GUESS where we are tonight???


Guess where we are tonight?? You betcha – Cape Lookout Bight. The finest anchorage I have experienced anywhere. Nothing but good memories here.. I’ve erased all the bad ones!!

It is only fitting that we make this our last anchorage of the cruise barring something unforeseen tomorrow. That and we heard Beaufort was full of anchored cruisers – the TWOMORROWS – and the current would have been against us after this record 71 nm day!!

It was a GREAT day on the ocean. Just as soon as we left Masonboro Inlet I raised sail and we were doing 6.1 – 6.5 all day!! Unheard of. There was maybe a 2 foot swell and light wind chop. The wind hovered around 10 kts SW all day. Just perfect. N o sea breeze filled in so it was comfortable the whole day.. For the most part we were alone out there too.

We made Cape Lookout and there were only 3 boats already anchored. We took a gravy spot near the entrance and the light house. It is going to be a fine evening in the light of the light house and the glow of a great sailing day.

Tomorrow we will leave in the morning on a rising tide to speed us up Adams Creek to Oriental and our new home slip at Sailcraft Marina. We will be with our good friends the Jim and Barb Thompson who are in final preparations for their great cruise.

Much more later. I’m whipped tonight.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Welcome back to North Carolina!!!

Yep we are almost home -- Anchored in Wrightsville Beach, NC tonight. It was a fairly long day but we really made tracks and had favorable current most of the way. Why?? I don’t know.. I haven’t been able to figure it out.

I expected to fight my way up the Cape Fear River on a falling tide and never saw anything less than 5.5 kts. I expected to be down to 3.3 kts through Snows Cut and held 8.5 kts!!

We expected to make the anchorage at Wrightsville about 6pm and actually had the hook down by 4pm.. Well welcome to NC!! I’ll take it!!

Our passage through the troublesome inlets of Shallotte and Lockwood Folly were both done near high tide and we had no problems. What a day…

Shortly after arriving we made a bee line to Robert’s Grocery for a little comfort food and ICE. Then back to the boat for dinner and later we played the Euchre game for the championship of the world between Ian, Sharon, Karen, and myself. Unfortunately we split 2 out of 3 games and we decided it was too late to continue since we will all leave early tomorrow so the final game still needs to be played. Ohhh when will it be??
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We split up here. The Canadian contingent will continue up the ICW and we hope to go offshore tomorrow for Beaufort.

Won’t be long now – then again I may chicken out tomorrow morning and we will head up the ICW with them

Monday, April 27, 2009

Now an EASY day -- sort of

Boy last night was not too bad. Once the wind died the boats just hung on the anchors and everyone had plenty of room.

After dinner we all congregated on Celtic Cross for a drink and some talk and called it a night by 9pm. It was a long day and everyone was whipped.

Today we got an early start – 6:45am and headed into the Waccamaw River and were immediately greeted with an adverse current 4.4 – 4.7 kts. This stayed with us all the way till we nearly hit the Little River Swing bridge and then we had a great current for the last 7 miles!!

We finally reached the Calabash Creek at R2 around 2pm. It was nearly low tide and quite shallow to enter – 6 feet!! We found a little more water inside and I anchored in 8 feet with the tide level expected to drop another foot. Celtic Cross made it in just fine but poor Waterparke grounded at the entrance. We went over to assist him but Boat US just happened to show up and offered assistance. He got him off with great difficulty and then escorted him to the anchorage and helped him anchor NEAR ME!! Ohhh shades of last night. This is a bit squirrelly here too where you go forward on the anchor but hopefully the current is not as bad as it was in Cow House Creek.

Sweet Chariot much to their credit decided to hand at a nearby marina. They draw 6 feet and could not enter here anyway at low tide and cannot leave until the tide comes up in the morning.

Celtic Cross invited everyone over for dinner tonight so I need to end this and clean up.. Boy it’s nice to have not such a long day today.

Tomorrow will be a long day and we hope to anchor at Wrightsville beach tomorrow night -- getting close to home now!!

The Longest Day

OOO Wee it was a L O N G day. A new record for number of miles traveled in one daylight day – 68 miles.

We were underway by 6:40am. The tide was just 2 hours off of low and rising. We needed the tide to get through the possible trouble areas. The near areas were easy but the Minim Creek was going to be dicey since we would be there on the low side of high tide. Fortunately we had a favorable current all the way through Minim Creek and made it an hour early or half tide. No problem other than anxiety.

Then as we reached Winyah Bay the favorable current left and a strong adverse current was felt. Speed over ground dropped to 4.4 to 4.7 kts and stayed that way all afternoon. Motor sailing I could increase the speed to 4.9 – 5.0kts. It was a long afternoon.

We reached Cow House Creek across from the Wacca Wache Marina a little after 5pm and had the hook down by 5:30pm. Celtic Cross and Waterparke were already there. I anchored between them with no problem and just sat down to relax when we moved forward into the current over the anchor. Ohhh shades of Beaufort, SC again. What the heck!! I had a current coming into the creek and a mild wind behind but the boat moved into the current and very close to Waterparke. Then Sweet Chariot came in and ran aground on a falling tide??

I set my freshly opened beer down and launched the dinghy and mounted the outboard. I went over to assist Ian and Sweet Chariot to get off. It was tough and all we could do was pull up the anchor and move it to deeper water so they could get off once the tide rose. Then it was time to decide what to do about my closeness to Waterparke.

It looked very close but with the wind forecast to die I decided to leave it alone and Waterparke agreed too. It was not going to be a comfortable night and it had been such a LONG day already.

After a hasty dinner since I had a motor on a dinghy in the water I went around to Waterparke and Sweet Chariot and ferried crews to Celtic Cross for a little get together.

We all agreed that this might be an anchorage for one or two boats but not four. That and the proximity to the marina on a Weekend day was bad because of all the buzzing boat traffic from small outboards.

Sleep was welcome this night.