Sunday was a mostly sunny day, and it was warm, which is a nice change. Even though we are in the South we have looking like advertisements for The North Face. We left Beaufort around 8:00 and made our way through the confusing channel with the current pushing us along at 7 to 8 knots just to make things interesting. Luckily the ICW was open at Camp Lejeune so we were able to go through without anyone firing at us. Last year when we were coming north they had closed the ICW so they could practice with live rounds. The tracers set one of the islands on fire so that was interesting... We anchored for the night at Mile Hammock Bay with about 20 other boats so the anchorage was crowded. As we were pulling in Tom from POLAR PACER invited us for a pot luck on their boat with MUTUAL FUN. Before dinner Bill went over to help Tom with his engine.
We were part way through dinner when ULITA pulled in looking for a spot to anchor. Tom yelled over to anchor next to POLAR PACER so they did, but ended up pretty close behind the boat. We joked about letting out the painter on one of the dinghys and sending it back to them so they could come aboard. Then the joke moved on to how funny it would be to let out the scope on POLAR PACER's anchor and back down on them. As soon as someone said this the guys were all on deck letting out scope, putting out fenders, and extending the boat hook. The look on Uli's face when he came up on deck and saw us rafted alongside was priceless. Good thing he has a sense of humor! The impromptu rafting did make it easier for Uli and Lita to join us for dinner.
Monday morning Bill had some sort of flashback to working life and set his alarm for 5:55 a.m. (Bill does not completely understand the concept of vacation.) On the brightside the sunrise was fantastic. We were having a good run down the ICW in a pack of about 10 boats, 13 by the time we got to the first bridge, not counting the boat aground. For a change the wind was just far enough off the nose to put up the sails if they were sheeted in very very tight. About half an hour after we put the main up the sky started turning very dark so we reefed the sail. Then the sky turned black so we took the sail down just as the rain hit. For a few minutes it was raining so hard we could not see anything which was alarming since we were in a narrow channel with a boat about 200 feet ahead of us and one on our starboard quarter that was trying to pass. Luckily within a few minutes the visibility came back. In the afternoon we missed one bridge opening, which meant we missed the next one, which only opens on the hour, by about 15 minutes. While we were waiting we were entertained by dolphins fishing next to the boat and swimming alongside. One dolphin would swim within about 5 feet of the boat and roll onto his side to get a better look at us.
Gail from STAR had warned us that the channel coming into Wrightsville Beach was shoaling and to stay close to the first green marker. A sailboat ahead of us tried that and ran aground but was able to back out. The next boat tried a little closer to the other side of the channel and went aground, and again was able to back out. Bill and I had a debate about whether to try the middle of the channel or to go a mile or so down to the other deeper channel and double back. One of us lost the debate so we tried the middle of the channel we were at and promptly ran hard aground. Fortunately we have Seatow insurance and the Seatow boat is docked very close to this channel. The nice young man in the tow boat said people go aground here like clockwork. After he had pulled us off the sand and into the channel we made it the rest of the way to the anchorage with no problem. In the evening we had a yummy fish chowder dinner (thanks to my mother's recipe) on STAR during an impressive thunderstorm.
Tuesday we got up bright and early as usual planning for a short run. The 25 knot headwind while fighting the current made for a long day - for quite a while we were averaging 2.9 to 3.2 knots over the ground. I thought Bill was going to lose his mind. We finally pulled into St. James Marina for the night. The marina is very protected, has very hot showers, inexpensive laundry, and only charges $1.05 per foot and has live music in the evening.
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