Wrightsville Beach

442 nm   N34 12.472   W077 47.937

Our trip today was supposed to take us to Carolina Beach,  but two of the drawbridges along the way only open on the hour, and we lost about half an hour at each one.  So we reset our sights on Wrightsville Beach.  Our friend Mike Scott had told us of a good anchorage in Wrightsville Beach, so we were set to try it.

Part of today's course took us through Camp Lejune.  Sometimes, this military training camp conducts live-fire exercises over the ICW!  In these cases, the ICW is closed off and no boats may pass.  You can call a number 24 hrs in advance to get the next day's schedule, and one of the other boaters on the dock at Swansboro had already done this and found it to be open.

"Live Firing in Progress When Flashing"

But this doesn't that they're not conducting any exercises.  We would periodically hear (and feel) a loud, low-pitched BOOM from beyond the tree line.

We saw more dolphins along the way, but, as usual, they were notoriously difficult to photograph.  One of them came alongside and swam with us for a few moments, but all I got was photos of a grey blur under the water.  And as soon as I started videoing, they disappeared!  I got just this one shot in the distance.

Dolphins

At Wrightsville Beach, once we got through the long wait for the drawbridge, we started hunting for fuel and a pumpout.  Around the corner at Seapath Marina, we found that they had neither fuel nor pumpout, both having been damaged by flooding.  We backtracked to the very busy Wrightsville Beach Marina right on the waterway just below the bridge.  I had skipped it on the way in because of the traffic and strong current.  This is a powerboat marina that caters to megayachts.  But they had fuel, even though it was obscenely expensive.  I also asked the dockhand if they had a working pumpout, and he assured me that they did.  I arranged to stop by first thing in the morning tomorrow when they open at 7am.  (More on this later)

We went in the creek and followed it through two doglegs to the anchorage area just inside the shoreline, separated bu only a narrow barrier island strip.  This is a large and sheltered anchorage, with good holding and room for plenty of boats.  We discovered several boats we kenw already at anchor, including S/V Northstar (who we met in Portsmouth), and S/V Take Five, who we rafted to in Dismal.

After we set the hook, Peter and Ginna from Take Five dinghy'd over to invite us to join them for a trip into town for dinner, which we did.  It was a very pleasant evening.  The food and the company were both excellent.

Life is good.