We left Morehead City at dawn on Oct. 26 bound for an anchorage in either Sloop Creek or Topsail, NC.
It was a cloudy day and somewhat windy. This is the reason why we didn’t take the alternative route to Manteo. The seas were kicking up as high as expected and we are much more protected here in the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) than we would have been on the outside passage.
We passed a dramatically netted fishing boat. It looked like a giant butterfly on the water! A flock of seagulls was following it hoping to benefit from its catch.
Cruised by some beautiful (and interesting) waterfront homes – so many of which line the ICW.
Lynn has been capturing photos of clothes hanging on clotheslines, though none until this entry have made it into the blog.
This part of the ICW still has many stretches of pristine shorefront.
We passed through Camp LeJeune but didn’t see the kind of practice activity that we saw on the way north.
We spent a good part of the day listening to Terri Gross podcasts and catching up on the blog.
At one point we were nearing a swing bridge only to discover that it wouldn’t open for an hour. We, along with four other boats, had to circle the area waiting for it to open. When it finally did, the sailboats asked us to take the lead and we stayed in the lead for the remaining time.
We ran into some areas with a lot of shoaling but fortunately did not run aground, though we heard on the radio quite a number of boats that did.
We decided to go beyond our original destination and anchor just before the Figure 8 Bridge near Wrightsville. This anchorage was not on Active Captain or in any of the guidebooks. We had stayed at an anchorage on the other side of the bridge on our way north. It was there that we ran aground and were stuck for several hours. When we reviewed anchorages for the area on Active Captain, we saw a write-up about that same anchorage by our friend Joel who was unable to get his anchor to set. As he left, the bridge tender told him about this new anchorage and he wrote it up in Active Captain next to the original anchorage. We were lucky we saw it. It turned out to be a perfect spot just for us right off of the ICW. It was located in a channel leading to a marina. There was a lovely bend in the channel lined with marshy grasses and very well protected. We spent a quiet night there, always a plus in a new spot.
Lynn made a vegetarian Indian curry with cauliflower, chick peas, potatoes and peas – a Cook’s recipe, of course! It was just the right degree of hot and served over brown rice, it made for a healthy and delicious dinner. Another “early to bed, early to rise” evening had Lynn going to bed before Jonny – most unusual!
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