November 20 - 26 RUNNING AGROUND AND OTHER NEWBIE EXPLOITS

Even though we have been sailing for 30+ years in several different sailboats, we are still learning what it takes to travel through the Intracoastal Waterway! We are definitely newbies when it comes to prioritizing what is needed each day and finding our way through the maze of inlets and waterway and river navigation symbols, and keeping track of the weather, the tides and the currents. If we sleep in a half hour more than we should, we have missed a crucial timing that could keep us from catching the current for the day or could cause us to leave on an ebbing (lowering) tide rather than a flooding tide. If we concentrate on the weather but miss the “cruisers net” bulletin on the internet that highlights the trouble spots for the area, we could be finding the shoals rather than missing them…….
Nov.20 We are inside the North Carolina barrier beaches (Hatteras, etc.) on the inland waterway canals,. Along the canals are large homes and docks; there is some interesting wildlife, birds, etc. Local small fishing/shellfishing boats have towers in the bow where the captain sits up high enough to see what is in the water ahead of him; he also has the engine controls up there with him. Bridges are keeping us on our toes; most need to open for us and some open only on the hour; some on the half hour and hour. There really is no time to just goof off! We ended this day at Wrightsville Beach, in a large anchorage just behind the beach. The beach could be Duxbury Beach, with an access bridge going out to it from the mainland, except it is covered with hotels, condos, single family homes, surf shops, etc. The beach is beautiful, but the extent of building on it is astounding. We spent two days here because it is a good anchorage and it is still cold and windy. The night of the 21st Wilmington NC (next to Wrightsville Beach) set a record for the low temperature for that day --something in the low 20s.
Nov. 22 We are headed for Cape Fear today, and it is still cold but clear. We bumped bottom on the way out of the channel from Wrightsville Beach. Otherwise had a good trip to Southport, NC where we got a free slip in the”old harbor” and enjoyed walking around the area and also getting out the folding bike to use to go a little further. We also treated ourselves to lunch and dinner out.

The next day was also cold and sunny (long johns again!). We left the slip at 8 am and by 10:30 we were in Lockwoods Folly, an inlet from the Atlantic which has shoaled and we had hit the shoal. It took until just after noon to get off. Several boats passed and looked at us with pity! One bright spot was the beach at this location. I rowed to the beach while we were stuck and found a mailbox and bench at the end of the beach -- not what I was expecting -- and it had notebooks and pens so you could leave your thoughts.
By the end of the day we were in South Carolina after 314 miles in North Carolina. We anchored in the
Calabash River, just off the ICW.
Nov. 24
When we got up -- at about 8 am -- the other half-dozen boats that had also been anchored there were already gone. We left at about 8:30 am and promptly went aground. (The other boats probably had a better
handle on the currents and tides than we had.) We seemed to be pretty well stuck and after about 10 minutes, a local shrimp boat heading home up the Calabash stopped and asked if we’d like him to try and free us. It worked, after some concentrated tugging on his part, and we found we were off the shoal and wouldn’t have to wait for the afternoon tide or for a tow boat to arrive and try to get us off. What nice people there are in the Carolinas!
After traveling through some more canals in the Myrtle Beach area we anchored in the Waccamaw River, behind a small island, along with 2 other boats. We were invited to come to one of the boats for drinks when we were settled. We met some new friends, Scott and Kitty on TAMURE from Connecticut and Lynn and Stu from Australia on ONDA. Nothing like an isolated anchorage and other cruisers to meet and talk with about our adventures. There was so much excited conversation that we had to (at someone’s suggestion) raise our hand to talk to keep the noise level down!
The next morning was mild and only partly cloudy; the temperatures were in the 50s by mid morning. We left the anchorage early and traveled more of the Wacamaw River, through fresh water with water hyacynthes floating everywhere. We planned to stop at Georgetown SC because we had heard so much about it as a great small city on the ICW. For a break, we rented a slip there and walked through some of the city, enjoying the novelty of being within striking distance of coffee shops, bookstores, banks, etc.
Georgetown is a working town with a big scrap-metal plant right at the end of Front Street (the main street) and paper mills are smelled and seen in the distance. But it does seem to deserve the reputation of having great supplies for cruisers and is an interesting town to tour and enjoy the 1700s and 1800s homes.
Before we left the next day we bought some fresh shrimp and some crab cakes at a market and continued down the ICW, without any goundings (!!!), to an anchorage near McLellanville, SC. This is an area with huge vistas of sea grass and lighthouses. There is only one other boat anchored anywhere near us and one shrimp boat returning home at sunset. This was another cold, sunny day. One highlight was a couple of dolphin sightings, once while they were mostly underwater, pushing up big waves of water (while they chased fish?) and then while another group swam near the boat and when one jumped out of the water in a clean breach.