Departure from Beaufort and on to Swansboro and Camp Lejeune

We were exhausted the evening of the 8th and did not stay up for the election results, but we both had feelings of foreboding.  Waking up on Wednesday morning, we were faced with the awful news (at least from our perspective).  Elena broke down in tears and downed three shots of vodka to recover.  We decided to ease our suffering by pulling into Town Creek Marina (to get the boat warm with our heater for one night), a trip downtown for ice cream, some major tourist shopping (including a new Indiana Jones hat for me), a book or two, and pizza for dinner.   All that helped, but it still hurts.

 

 

We could not resist buying “Anton and Cecil Cats at Sea when we found this book in Beaufort.

 

We met up with Jay and Louisa Carver of the sailing vessel “Airborne” who shared E Dock at Herrington Harbour with me when I first bought Sophia.  They had been cruising for a year or so and then were in Albania helping set up the court system as part of a USAID project.  I saw their boat on the hard in Herrington and figured they had given uo the cruising life, but they are in fact back at it.

We also were across the dock from the schooner Adventure that we had seen earlier in the Adams Creek Canal, but we only exchanged pleasantries.

After a reveille at 0530, we left Beaufort on at 0710 Thursday 10 Nov in a 20 knot north wind.  The first leg was back up to the north and we crawled our way at 3 knots for an hour and then turned south and was making 6 knots immediately,

 

 

We passed under the Morehead City/Beaufort Bridge at 0900.  Elena was busy putting up windows so we could block the wind and I had my head down on the chartplotter looking for the channel.  “Airborne” sailed past us with arms waving and we waved back.  Then, at almost 7 knots we sail past the Coast Guard station and in front of us the Atlantic Ocean.  I had missed the turn into the Intracoastal Waterway!!!!   I had thought the arm waving was Jay and Louisa warning us that we missed the turn, but I found out later that they were expressing admiration that we were heading into the Atlantic in the middle of gale force winds.  We immediately turned around and slugged our way back at 3 knots into that north wind until we got back to the bridge and took the turn to the southwest and the ICW.

Most of rest of the day was uneventful with the exception of a couple of places where the water got shallow and caused us to slow down and proceed cautiously.  Lots of big houses along the ICW, most of them seemed empty and I assume serve rich folks as weekend houses.

We anchored in the White Oak River off the town of Swansboro in company with a couple of other boats.

 

 

 

 

On the morning of the 11th, we got a late start, underway at 0915 for a short day of about 15 miles to the next anchorage.  We were passed by a number of boats, more than we have seen for few days.  After passing the Onslow Beach bridge, we entered the confines of Camp Lejeune, Marine Corps Base.

 

 

As we were turning into the anchorage at Mile Hammock Bay, a pod of about 6 dolphins greeted us and played around the boat for a while.

Dolphins Playing with Sophia Movie

 

We anchored  with one other boat, but by sunset there were 14 other boats in the harbor, including the previously mentioned schooner Adventure and several French speaking Canadians we had seen in Oriental.

Tomorrow we go to Wrightsville Beach and then on to Southport.  We then jump offshore for legs to Georgetown SC and Charleston SC.