In a stressed filled, but short, day’s run we slowly pulled into the anchorage at Wrightsville Beach. I remember peeking into Mott’s Channel when we passed through here on the way up North, but then we were hungry for more distance and due to very long delays waiting to pass through their Bascule Bridge, we had a close thing getting to fuel and someplace to tie up for the night.
This night we were in another nice anchorage and I wish we’d stopped here on the way up. The view from the back porch isn’t bad either.
About the only drawback is that we’re in Carolina Skiff land. I’ve never seen a brand dominate the way these things have down here…OK maybe the iPhone, but my point is that you take one of these things, and they’re not just painted in camouflage anymore. No, you have your white and powder blue, yellow, or even orange, all two tone. You clamp on a large Japanese outboard, and this is critical, you throw in a bunch of fishing rods, because, forgive me Shecky, you put fishing rods in a boat, the captain goes crazy!
They’re buzzing us right now, flying right through the anchorage, waking everyone, fishing rods bobbing in the back. What is it about fishing rods and the average American boater?
Anyway, Escapees, I tell you we had to coordinate the bizarre opening schedules of a multitude of articulated bridges causing us to push really hard in badly shoaling water and alternatively poke along waiting for a bridge to open. This was the chief reason to keep our distance conservative today and I’m glad we did.
Tomorrow we’ll dinghy into town to have breakfast at the Causeway Cafe claimed, by our friends Ed & Sue on Angel Louise, to have the best breakfast on the East Coast! We’ll be the judge of that.
That’s life on the water.
WAS IT THE BEST BREAKFAST?? Better than Pamela’s pancakes ( which I can no longer eat …heartburn
Love reading your blogs thinking about you
I agree with Ed and Sue – everyone told us that the Causeway Cafe was the best place for breakfast, and it was!! I’ve also enjoyed the Dockside on a few occasions (not for breakfast!!) I’ve looked at that anchorage, but it was always too crowded when I was there – must be some consolation to be there late in the season!!
You are right about having hectic bridge schedules. But by our third trip we found a trick that works great… both in NC and in Florida to hit the bridges just at the right time. (if you already use the technique forgive us). We found that our Garmin GPS Map feature showed the roads crossing the waterways, so we just set a waypoint using the map feature at the exact point where it crossed the ICW. Then we pulled up the view showing time and distance to that waypoint based on our speed. We would speed up or slow down so we hit each one about 2-5 minutes of the bridge opening time. Worked like a charm and we never had to wait or speed up at the last part of the trip in making each bridge.
I did the same thing, but manually, using the iPad. Every hour or so, I calculated the time/distance and determined the speed that would put us at the bridge at the right time. Gave me something to do all day. 🙂
I’m trying to imagine all of this without a GPS, as in my father’s square rigger days rounding the horn….