Easiest
day yet. We woke up a little early, around 06:30, and decided to get up
and start getting ready for an 08:00 departure, as we wanted to catch the tidal
current just right for the next leg of our trip through Cape Fear River and out
to Wrightsville Beach along the barrier islands of North Carolina. This was a trip of only 24 nautical miles, and because
we timed it to coincide with mostly favorable currents, we covered the distance
in under 4 hours – better by far than our average speed yesterday of only 4.5
knots. So we were anchored in
Wrightsville Beach before noon. We will
wait here until early tomorrow morning when we will go out Masonboro Inlet to
sea and spend the day at sea going directly to Cape Lookout and into Beaufort Inlet, which is where we
will re-enter the ICW, having avoided 10 shoaling inlets and a fair quantity of
bridges with restricted opening schedules.
The weather forecast calls for winds from the southwest for the next 3
days, which is perfect for our northeast direction of travel.
 |
| A beautiful warm day in Wrightsville Beach, NC |
We
have also been favored today with warm temperatures. I am sitting comfortably in the cabin in
70°F, wearing only a tee shirt and trowsers.
This is the first time in 3 weeks we have had such a beautiful, warm day
and we get to enjoy it at anchor making preparations for going to sea. When we decided that we would be spending
most of our northeast journey in the ICW, we deflated our dinghy and stowed in
a locker aboard Kite. Now that we know
we will be spending the day at sea, we must inflate the dinghy and tow it
behind Kite. This is done as a safety
precaution in the event we would have to abandon ship, we would be able to get
into the dinghy, activate our emergency locating beacons and wait to be
rescued, or maybe even row for 10 miles back to the beach. We also needed to ask for local knowledge
about Masonboro Inlet to be sure there would be a clearly marked deep water
passage out to sea from Wrightsville Beach. Our “float plan” was filed
with TowboatUS, so that if we didn’t arrive safely at Cape Lookout by evening,
they would start looking for us.
Since we will have a long day at sea tomorrow and will be arriving late into Beaufort, NC, we do not plan to update our blog until Wednesday.
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