Today would take us past Carolina Beach, through Snow's Cut, down the notorious Cape Fear River, through some of the worst shoaled sections of North Carolina. Our ultimate destination would be Calibash Creek, a small anchorage off of the Little River inlet, just over the South Carolina border and just north of Myrtle Beach.
But first we backtracked to the Wrightsville Beach Marina at first light for the promised pumpout. Once there, the young girl on duty informed me that she couldn't do a pumpout!! But she did offer to let me do it, which was fine with me. However, when she tried to start the pump, nothing happened! A call to the dockmaster revealed that the pumpout was out of commission, and suggested I try Seapath!!
So much for that! Meanwhile, we wasted a half hour of precious daylight. So, based on their obscenely expensive gas ($4.51/gal!!) and poorly instructed staff, I cannot recommend Wrightsville Beach Marina for anything! Do yourself a favor and stay away!
Along the way to Carolina Beach, we saw occasional boats up on the marshes, a grim reminder of the power of these storms.
The ride down Snow's Cut had the current in our favor, and was a real "sleighride", with the GPS reporting our speed over ground as over 8 knots!!
Once out on the Cape Fear River, I was expecting the current to turn against us, but it held with us for about two-thirds of the way down to Southport at the river mouth. The wind was very light, so conditions were smooth, with none of the wind-driven "rage" conditions that can occur here when wind and current are opposed. And we made good time.
The next strip of passage down the coast has some of the most badly shoaled parts of the ICW in North Carolina. Lockwood's Folly, Shalotte's Inlet, these are names that strike caution into the hearts of ICW cruisers. The Shoals shift constantly, and temporary channel markers are placed and moved to try and keep up with them. These temporary marke can be very confusing, sometimes deflecting your course to within yards of the inland shoreline! But if you keep a sharp lookout for them, and follow them, disreguarding whatever your chart (or chartplotter) says, then you should be fine. And we were, never touching bottom once.
The mega-mansions along this strip of "the ditch" seemed to have fared well, with minimal signs of damage.
As we approached little River Inlet, I noted that a shrimpboat that had been wrecked there in 2016 by hurricane Matthew was still in place on the beach.
We entered Calabash Creek close to low tide, and the tidal range here is large. Based on my tide charts, the entrance to the creek would drop to 4 1/2 feet, at low tide, which is what we draw! We would need to be up early tomorrow to get out before low tide trapped us here for a while.
Once inside, there was plenty of water. There were already three boats at anchor, lining the edge of the channel, and we took our place at the head of the line. Later, just at sunset, a fifth boat came and anchored right near the mouth.
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| Three Boats at Anchor Below Us |
Others have reported that this anchorege is bumpy due to all the boat wakes from traffic going into and out of Calibash, but we found the shrimpers to be very respectfull, motoring by all of us at dead slow until they were well past. Thank you!
And of course, today being Halloween, Joanie broke out our pumpkin shirts.
We fired up the grill and cooked a batch of country ribs and vegetables.
Life is good.
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