Monday, May 6, 2013 – Myrtle Beach Yacht Club (Mile 345) to Carolina Beach (Mile 295):

            We woke up and got up this morning before the birds even started twittering in order to leave at the first light of dawn.  After a peanut butter and banana sandwich on raisin toast and coffee we shooed Miss Kitty Cat under the covers and started up the engines.  With a little help from our neighbor, who told us he was encouraged to take off also when he saw we were getting ready, we backed out of the slip and said good-bye to Myrtle Beach. 

However it wasn’t without some concern for the weather as the sky was turning very dark with thick black clouds moving in and the distant rumbling sound of thunder, which we were sure was going to come closer and closer – especially since the forecast was for 100% chance of rain.  I was thinking our boat neighbor was going to be discouraged after he followed us out into the waterway.  The winds were forecast to be in our favor, however, so “damn the torpedoes and full-speed ahead!”

For awhile we had a little sun, and as the waterway headed east for a little while, we were “blinded” by the beautiful glint off the water.  I was just thankful to see some sunshine even if it didn’t last long which it didn’t!

The sky as we left Myrtle Beach!

We only had three miles to go before we reached the North Carolina border (!) and then we had to deal with the first “hurdle” of the day, the Little River Inlet.  The tide was high so I wasn’t too worried about skinny passages, but the weather was turning “ugly”, and within the three miles of reaching the border and the Little River, we had a full-blown monsoon-like rain complete with thunder and an occasional lightning bolt to accompany us through here.  I wrote about this on the way down here – that this looked like an intersection of two roads with the marks trying to be copycats of stop signs.  As we traveled north, however, and because of the weather, it didn’t remind me of any of this.  It’s funny how your perception of the area changes as you see it in a different perspective.

Right before the skies opened up, however, we had that beautiful hue where the sky is a dark blue, and the landscape is bathed in an ethereal light that makes everything jump out at you.  There were some cows grazing on an island abutting the ocean and we could see the breakers beyond the island.  It looked just like a John Constable painting!  I tried to get a picture, but I don’t think I did it justice.

Cows grazing on the island with the ocean in the distance

A fisherman

Fishing just before the storm

Ok, the weather is getting fouler!  I am not sure I like the idea of facing the Cape Fear River in this mess.  Visibility is now so bad I am getting a headache trying to see what’s ahead even though I have the binoculars glued to my eyeballs.  It is now time to put on the foul weather gear and go down and turn on the running lights.  Bob wondered why there was no switch on the flybridge to turn them on, and I said because the Grand Banks people didn’t think anybody would be so dumb to drive from up here in a monsoon!  The only possibly encouraging sign about the weather was that it always looked like it might clear up ahead, but “ahead” always stayed just out of our reach.

Now we have to face Shallot’s Inlet.  We religiously followed our notes about where and how far to stay “away from” or “close to” the marks, and even though visibility was terrible we got through this inlet without any problems.

I am thinking the weather could not possibly get any worse, but it could always get a little worse, so I am just going to deal with this.  I am wondering if it was a good thing we left when we did, but I do know if we had woken up to what was falling out of the sky right now, we would be staying another day in Myrtle Beach! 

Well, it rained so hard that our canvass, which usually lets us feel that we are in a little cocoon up here all comfy and cozy, just decided it had had a little too much rain and started leaking.  So far we are out of the “leak zone” and still dry, but I can tell that pretty soon if the rain doesn’t let up, we are going to get dripped on, which, as a matter of fact, happened shortly thereafter.

Next up was Lockwood’s Folly, and we have written in our notes that there is only about 6’ at MLW.  Yikes…

Well, I think the rain dumped several more feet of water in there, because we didn’t have any trouble.  This is a somewhat developed area with rusting shrimp boats lining the docks on both sides some looking like they had seen better days if they weren’t sunken and sitting on the bottom!

Finally, we have made it through all the inlets we have to go through today – next up – the Cape Fear River!  I so wish the rain would stop!  As we approach this river we pass by Southport, which has a lovely marina where we stayed on the way down after coming out of the Cape Fear River.   As we passed by here, I could smell woodfires burning and was thinking how nice it would be right now to be inside a nice dry house with a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate cake.  Oh well…

It is now 11:00 a.m., and we are earlier than we wanted to be to arrive at this river.  We were hoping to have the current with us and fly up the river, but we still have an hour to go before the current changes, and we aren’t going to stop now!    There is a bit of traffic in here, barges and ferries along with pleasure boats (what on earth are pleasure boats doing out in this weather?!), police boats, and you have to dodge all this traffic and still find the marks for the waterway.  Just like on the way down here, there are so many marks you have to negotiate – small entrance channel marks, range marks, danger marks, ferry crossing marks, commercial channel marks, and marks that I have no idea what on earth they’re for.  But we get through here, and guess what!  The skies are clearing up and the sun is coming out!! We have the wind from the south, and the current started turning around!  The day is starting to look up!  Once we get through most of the river, we have to make a slight right and head up into Snow’s Cut, under the Carolina Beach fixed bridge and into Joyner Marina where we will spend the night.

We arrived here at 12:45 p.m., but it seems like we have been gone the whole day!  It’s exhausting driving in that kind of rain!  I am so happy to be tied up for the night, but unfortunately, the marina has put us out on the face dock, and every boat that comes by apparently doesn’t see the “No Wake” sign and we are rocked around all over the place.  We have six fenders out, stern lines, bow lines, spring lines and whatever else Bob has tied the boat up with, but we are still rocking around. 

Joyner Marina under a blue sky!

Oh well, the sun is finally shining, it’s warm, and tomorrow we are going to head for Mile Hammock Bay which is a beautiful, quiet anchorage (except for the helicopters from Camp Lejeune!)

Tonight I am making poached salmon with either teriyaki noodles or a sweet potato – I haven’t decided yet, but you can bet there will be a cold glass of white wine to accompany it.