After an eventful and busy three weeks in Norfolk, the time came on Thursday, 11/20, to resume our southerly travels. We said so long to mom and dad and our Norfolk friends, and with Pat, Scott, and Lisa aboard for the first leg we got under way on a 3C morning (clear, calm, and cool) bound for Coinjock, NC. Scott took the helm and gave us a history tour of the riverfront as we went. Every one of the four bridges we needed open as well as the Great Bridge Lock timed out perfectly – what a fortuitous beginning for our trip. Dropped off our passengers and stayed the night along side at the Midway Marina.

On Friday we had planned to go about 50 more miles to the headwaters of the Alligator River. But, the weather was another 3C, and the ease of traveling lured us to push a bit and put the 25 mile long Alligator-Pungo canal behind us. We exited after dark, hung a right, and anchored in the quiet water of the upper Pungo River.

Saturday it was an easy push to Oriental, NC. We had never been there, but will certainly go again. Plenty of time to explore. We found a fitness center and worked out. We found a place to have a beer and watch the sunset, and there met Tim and Hanna at an adjacent table. They are adventuring on their trawler, Slowly, and have a neat website they keep up to date on a daily basis. We also found a Tiki bar right at the Oriental Marina where we were staying that seemed to be “the” place to be with the locals. The friendliest people – a highly recommended stop for any cruiser.

Sunday, Tim and Hanna stopped by early and while Andrea and Hanna visited, Tim helped me get our onboard wireless network going. Now we have both computers talking to one another. Andrea ran. We shoved off at 1300, and Andrea captained the boat most of the 25 miles to Beaufort. Along the way we passed Slowly slowly, but because of different approach routes to Beaufort, we all arrived about the same time. It took this captain four attempts to anchor in the narrow Taylor Creek which was filled with boats and moorings. Finz got our business for dinner. Returned to the boat, and sacked sort of early only to be awakened around 10 by the passing close by of a 150 Menhaden fishing trawler. No problem, but exciting.

Monday, 11/24 is another perfect 3C. We completely enjoyed the Beaufort scene, including a tour of there considerable inventory of restored original buildings – homes, apothecary, jail, etc. A stroll along the waterfront was worth the time. It is a very interesting town and we’ll be back. (ps. One store had 40% off Tommy Bahama stuff in an effort to clear out its inventory at season’s end. We did no damage there, but found a couple other stores worthy of a few tourist dollars.)

Tuesday, 11/25 had us ashore at 0900 to borrow a station wagon from the NC Maritime Museum. They make this available free, literally, to visiting boaters for up to 2 hours. We provisioned at the local Food Lion, returned the car, dropped some appreciative dollars in their collection jar, and headed for the boat. We didn’t have time to really explore the museum, but would make it a priority next visit.

Departing Beaufort, the autopilot promptly blew three successive fuses and retired. L Hand steering ahead! A couple calls to Raymarine got us set up to have it looked at when we got to Wrightsville Beach. The Bogue Sound is long, shallow, and a bit boring but there were many porpoise sightings. We both were fascinated at the way they played and 'surfed' just in front of the boat's underwater bow pressure wave.

We traversed the waters of Camp Lejune noting Harrier and helicopter training in process, but none of the live firing that sometimes crosses the “ditch.” By 430 pm we turned into a quiet anchorage at Mile Hammock, dropped the hook and enjoyed some wonderful filets for dinner. It was one of those crystal clear evenings, and the new moon and Venus really lit us up. As a treat, we discovered we could actually order PPV via our satellite DirecTV and watched “Bend it like Beckham.”

Wednesday we left early to be sure to get to Wrightsville by mid-day, which we did. An amazing thing happened on the way to the beach – suddenly a small fishing boat with two scary looking guys pulled along side and waved us down. I slowed carefully and what the hey??? They were my cousins Mike and Tom McFee! They were fishing and thought the boat looked familiar from our website pictures, checked us out, and Bingo! Tom lives in Wilmington. Mike was visiting with his family for Thanksgiving. It turned out that so were other cousins Jim and Chris plus Aunt Jane and Uncle Jim. After we were tied up we were visited by a lot of them for a while. What are the odds? All that while, the Raymarine guy discovered a short in one of the units and fixed our autopilot. Andrea ran, we had great barfood dinner.

Thanksgiving Day we moved from the marina to the anchorage and Andrea created a fantastic dinner – roast turkey, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cornbread filling, cranberry sauce, and salad.

We were joined by Tim and Hannah who dinked over from Slowly. They brought a pecan pie and a pumpkin pie they had baked that afternoon. By 930 we were as stuffed as any turkey that day and retired in hopes a good night’s sleep would ease the bloat.

Friday, 11/28 dawned bright and clear, a complete contradiction of the forecasted 70% chance of rain with high winds. That will come later. There was something of a sign when we awoke to find the buzzards already gathering for what was to come. Andrea ran ashore, and we decided to move the boat about a dozen miles further along to Carolina Beach where we anchored in mid-afternoon. The wind was piping up and overcast was looming in the west. We took a short trip ashore and walked around the few sorry blocks that comprise this tired seashore community. Back on the boat we were just settling in for a comfortable dinner at nightfall when the front hit us. In no time we were signaled by a nearby sailboat because we were dragging anchor. Instant action – we started the engines, hauled the anchor, and went to a new spot. In spite of over 100’ of chain rode out in 15’ of water, we dragged again so we retired the plow anchor and deployed the Danforth, this time on 150’. We were glued to the radar, chart plotter, and mapping software with all their alarms set to signal any movement. There was none, but each of us was up several times during the windy night to verify that we remained in the same zip code.

On Saturday we left in the wind and traveled north on the Cape Fear River to Wilmington, tied up at their city dock right in downtown, and started a two-day exploration of one of the least known little gems along the waterway. Wilmington’s downtown is entirely a historic district with tons of old warehouses having been converted to retail, small business, and residential space. There are restaurants galore, tons of galleries, and fascinating history. The battleship North Carolina is docked there as a fascinating tourist attraction. Wilmington is on the rise! It also is the third largest film production locale in the country behind LA and NY. We were right in front of the Hilton and had free access to their gym and their T1 internet connection. So, you're getting the first installment of our Southerly leg thanks to some gracious southern hospitality.

Monday, 12/1 We departed Wilmington around noon. An easy but inefficient trip down the Cape Fear River against the flooding (@ >1.5kt) tide. We turned south into the ICW at Southport and only a mile south of there, nosed our way into a pretty little creek. It was narrow, but had plenty of depth. It was good to be on our way. It was another one of those clear nights with a gorgeous sunset, plenty of stars, and the punctuation of the nearby lighthouse with four quick flashes every so many seconds.

Tuesday, 12/2 the dawn broke clear and crisp heralding another great day. We left our anchorage around 11am and cruised the waterway past several inlets, through the only floating pontoon bridge still left on the ICW. Approaching Myrtle Beach, we stopped for fuel - a little over 800 gallons. Our computations delighted us as we figured that after an allowance for generator time, we were burning less than 6 GPH since our fill-up a month earlier in Portsmouth, VA!

At that point, we bumped the bottom just at the edge of the channel. We returned to Wilmington, NC for repairs and with all the holidays and stuff, knew we would have our Caribbean winter postponed so we decided to put that off a year and kick back until we could start back north in the spring. This is our Winter Break.