Day 52, Wednesday, June 4, 2008

I forgot to record the “Underway” time. Destination today is somewhere near Southport, NC. We do a pretty good job of timing our arrival at Sunset Beach Bridge (pontoon bridge) and continue on to the trouble spots of the day. There are so many inlets to deal with, you are fighting tidal current on one leg and then running with the current on the next. We make it through Shallotte and Lockwoods Folly Inlets by following the advice I got off the Salty Southeast Cruisers Net.

We arrived at the “Pipeline” anchorage area near low tide. There is an underwater damn there and I did not like the looks of the entrance depth. The low tide was going to be a “negative” tide so I decided not to anchor and moved on toward Southport. We needed to time our transit up the Cape Fear River and we also needed to refuel so stopping at the Southport Marina was a better option. Even here the low tide caused problems. We were touching bottom at the fuel dock and when we tried to go to our assigned slip we ran aground in the fairway about 40 yards from the slip. I was able to back off safely. We were then told to go to the T-head north of the fuel dock and we were able to dock there.

After docking we walked about 1.5 miles to a convenience store and bought the essentials, beer, bread and milk. After the walk back we fixed dinner, watched TV, read books and retired for the evening.

Location: Southport Marina, Southport, NC at MM 309. Boat distance traveled, 44.7 miles. Time in actual transit, approximately 8.5 hours.