Moored at City Dock. We plan to spend another night here to visit the area. Dinner at Skudder's . On Monday we walked the city, borrowed one of the marina cars for a trip to the store, and prepared for departure in the morning.
Underway at sunrise. We spent most of the day slogging against tides. Almost none of the trip was above 5.4 knots, which means we had at least a one knot current against us. We made arrangements to stay at Topsail at a marina I had found several years ago. Jan's brother had lived here once and we were familiar with the place. It turns out that the marina had been through foreclosure and had only four or five 25 ft slips that we could use. It turned out that the two other boats with us had also made the same deal with the x-owner. We all paid in cash and then Jan and I found a great pizza restaurant for dinner. We left in the morning before 7 (dark) and got thru the Topsail Highway Bridge before its restricted closure . We had much better luck with tides today. We fueled up at Wrightsville Beach where were instrumental in finding a little dog lost on the fuel dock. After a little detective work we got him back to his owner who had stopped at the fuel dock ten minutes before us. He never knew the dog had jumped off.
We got a push thru Snow'sCut entering the Cape Fear River but ran into a 2 knot head current for the run down to Southport. Facing a very severe cold front approaching the next afternoon, we chose to take the offshore overnight route to Charleston and speed up our move south. Leaving Southport and making at least 5.5 kts, we would arrive in Charleston by noon the next day.
Overnight we ran into a piece of the Gulf Stream that kept us at 5 knots. When we passed Cape Romain at 3am, we lost the stream and our speed went back to 6.3 kts.
We arrived at City Marina around 12:30 and within minutes the winds began to rise. As we had not slept, we tied up, showered, started a bit of laundry and crashed. When we woke around 7:30pm, the whole harbor was a mess. The Lady I was bucking on 3 and 4 ft waves while tied to the dock. All four fenders earned the Medal of Honor for the protection they provided.
On Thursday, the winds were just as bad and the tides were almost 4 feet lower than normal due to the tides being blown out. We left the marina for a trip downtown for lunch and some touring. Tonight, the winds are still howling as we make tentative plans to depart in the morning. If the winds are down we are off after 9 with a goal of Beaufort, SC.
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