Sunset at Mile Hammock Bay

The ocean in the distance

Lucy thinking about jumping ship!

Wednesday, October 24 – Mile 244 – 295:  I think the saying is, “the enemy never sleeps.”  Well, neither do the helicopter pilots from Camp Lejeune – at least I think they were from Camp Lejeune.  We were in such a beautiful, peaceful anchorage in Mile Hammock Bay, and then came the whirring sounds of helicopters – millions of them, all night long – it sounded like something out of a bad war movie.  Finally, we were so tired, we were able to ignore them and go to sleep, but the cat will never be the same.  She was convinced that they were prehistoric pterodactyls, and she was their first choice on the menu.  So fair warning to anyone who wants to anchor in this idyllic spot – bring earplugs!

            So, this morning Bob suggests that we leave early as we have about 50 miles to go, and there might be a few “difficult” spots to get through, so we are off (with no trouble as we were anchored) at 8:00 a.m.  The first “red flag” should have been that we had to start out at low tide, because as we passed by Red 72B we wound up bouncing and slogging through the mud.  Yikes – that was the first moment of heart failure of the day.  The next “red flag” was the current, which switched around at every inlet and ran like the devil.  However, once again, we had dolphins playing in our wake, and I could smell wood fires burning on shore, which evoked memories of falling leaves, the scent of baking pumpkin pies and sipping wine in front of a roaring fire (I thought about being homesick), but Bob and I are in shorts and short sleeves and sweating as it is over 80 degrees right now.  (No, I’m not really complaining!)

            I am going to try and be a little more detailed as I write as some of our friends who are reading this have asked for more specifics as to where we actually happen to be when “disaster strikes”.  I honestly can’t believe anyone thinks this is worth their time since it really is just a personal journal and something for the kids to keep up with us, but I am flattered that some of our friends are finding it interesting.

            So on down toward Surf City Bridge (Mile 260) we go with the dolphins frolicking in and around the boat.  I have gotten over my heart failure just past Mile Hammock Bay.  Surf City Bridge is a swing bridge which only opens on the hour, but we are timing our approach well, and don’t have to wait long.  However, there are about eight boats, and several sailboats are ahead of us and go through first.  One interesting note about the bridges in this part of the world - instead of nice bells to alert you to the fact that the bridge is going to go up or down, or side to side, they use something that sounds like an air raid siren, and the first time I heard it, I thought we were going to be bombed out of the water, and then the helicopters would come again… but, we finally get through the bridge, and all the boats are in different passing modes, and most boaters are being very polite and radioing the boat they want to pass and letting everyone know what’s going on.  However, to me, this is not a comfortable situation – the channel is narrow, the water is shoaling all over the place, and we are still dealing with low tide.  There is one sailboat that must have had a corvette engine in his boat because he is driving at mach speed and right next to us.  At one point I should have asked him if he “had any Grey Poupon”.  So, I am looking ahead at all of these maneuvers, and one of the trawlers has radioed a certain sailboat that he would like to pass, and so they do, but the sailboat has moved over a little to far to starboard and all of a sudden runs aground and makes a sharp 90° left turn to get out of the mud, and cuts right in front of everybody.  Yikes!  Well after a few flailings around everyone moves on again.  So a few minutes later, guess what, Bob says he wants to pass the same sailboat (aaarrgghgh), so I call him on the radio, and he says he will move over and “come on”.  So we do, and guess what – he does the same thing – he moves over too far, and runs into the mud, and does a sharp 90° turn – RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!  This causes Bob and I to jump up and down, run around the boat, eyeballs to pop out of head, throw the boat in reverse which promptly stalls the starboard engine – the shoaling shore is coming uncomfortably close and we need to restart the engine as it’s hard to drive without an engine, and I think about declaring insanity and flying home.  Well, I don’t know how this all got sorted out, but Bob is really good at handling the boat and the engine got restarted, and the sailboat and us waved to each other as though nothing happened, and we decide to follow him for a little while, and then we try the same maneuver again, aaarrghraarrghggh, but this time it works, we pass him.  I am thinking of succumbing to a nervous breakdown, but Bob is happy as a clam, so I just close my eyes and write notes to myself.  You know, “see no evil”…well, we finally get all sorted out, the trawlers pass all the sailboats, and we actually pass the sailboat with the corvette engine, everybody waves as we go along, and the world is right again.  No more scary incidents, right?  WRONG! 

            We have one more spot near Little Topsail Inlet (Mile 270) that we have been warned about.  It has severely shoaled in, and we should keep Green 99A 75’ to port.  So by this time we are following two trawlers – we watch the one in the “lead” bounce through there, and he radios to the trawler behind him to “hug” the green can as he was having trouble.  I’m thinking, “Nah uh,” but we don’t think we should radio the trawler in front of us to keep the green can so far to port because what if our information is wrong????  Well, he runs aground, and hard.  It was a sad sight to see the boat do a nose dive into the shoal and then settle in till high tide.  We heard him on the radio say he was just going to drink until the tide lifted him off – sounds like a good plan to me.  Well, we followed our friend’s directions and got through that area with NO problem!  I’m thinking – what would you do if you had to wait till late in the day to get off – and then do you have to travel at night to find an anchorage or marina?  Not a pleasant picture.

            We travel on – pass the high rent district with million dollar homes – some of which are quite nice.  At Masonboro Inlet (Mile 285), you can actually see the ocean, and then we had the current with us and flew from mile 285 to mile 290.  We were doing 10.5 knots and had 20’ depth of water to cruise in - practically at idle speed      …only one more scary part to go…at the Carolina Beach Inlet, we were warned to watch the tide and current closely , but we had no trouble…PHEW!

            We had a reservation at Joyner Marina at Carolina Beach (just before Snow’s Cut) and we pulled in around 2:30 p.m.  I was never so glad to get tied up in all my life.  What a day!  I was wondering if Lucy had sensed my discomfort yesterday as she was practically invisible, hiding under the covers, and I thought today, I would never see her.  But she did the strangest thing – when we got tied up, she came out from hiding “in the bed”, and actually stuck her nose outside to look around.  Maybe she is thinking of jumping ship?

            Tomorrow – the Cape Fear River – does that tell you something???