Swansboro, NC – At Anchor

Hoolie's Enjoyment

We had to negotiate the tangled web of traffic lanes by Beaufort. The chartplotter was a godsend. We surely would have made a wrong turn somewhere without it. The magenta line designating the ICW on the chart ends before Beaufort and only starts again after Moorhead City, between the two points, you’re on your own!

Nice Sunset

After Moorhead City, the ICW is arrow straight and is just a ditch dug out of shallows along the inner shore. The saving grace today was the lack of any bridges we had to wait for, they were all 65 ft high so we went right through. Saturday will be another story, we have to negotiate four bridges with two only opening on the top of the hour. If you arrive 5 mins past the hour, you’ll have to wait 55 min for the next opening! It’s neat trick when the ICW typically has current! We saw up to 1.5 kts today, sometimes with us and sometimes against us. Waiting for a bridge to open with 1.5 kts of current behind you would not be fun. However, we put waypoints in for each of the bridges and with the chartplotter, you’ll get an ETA for each waypoint. In theory you can set your speed to arrive just in time for the bridge to open – we’ll see what happens when theory meets reality on Saturday! At any rate, you can’t just plow ahead at 7.3 kts, our usual speed motoring, you have to plan ahead.
Hoolie has a place of enjoyment on shore, a city park although getting us onshore is a bit of a climb over a wooden breakwater – but it’s no challenge for Hoolie, he just bounded up! We had a nice sunset for a change and all's quiet and calm, ready for the excitement of tomorrow!