Morehead City, NC

June 8, 2012
34 43.293N
76 42.280W

"Is that light flashing? Or is it the sun?"

We were out of bed at about 7:30AM this morning and underway within a few minutes. I recovered the anchor in my pajamas. When we arrived last night there were 7 boats in the anchorage, when I woke up we were the only boat! Obviously the other 6 boats knew something we did not, and so were are outa there! (We had heard thru the grapevine that sometimes the marines actually closed the ICW for live fire exercises!)  That was not the case today, but it turned out to be a decent decision because there was a turning bridge about 5 miles ahead that only opened on the hour. We were roaring along at out "fast cruising speed" of about 8 kts, with the bridge in sight about a mile away at 8AM, so I radioed the tender and asked if he would hold the bridge. The response was "No rush" - turned out  this was "the slowest bridge on the ICW" and it took about 5 minutes to open and 5 to close, and so we "sailed thru" not losing a minute.

It was a pleasant sunny day, so I sat up on the bridge in the warm morning sun while Deidre hustled up some breakfast. For the next 10 miles or so we were serenaded by the continuing marine artillery practice, till we left the base area behind us.

Barely a ripple

It was a perfect day, lots of sun and barely a ripple in the water. We were planning to join our new friends, Bonnie and John Bryant, at a marina in Moorhead City - just across the river from Beaufort, NC, about 34 miles away. We made good time and arrived about 1PM. They were waiting for us and had arranged a 50' space behind their boat on a face dock. Turns out they were not kidding about 50' - our boat is 49' 8" long and so we had about 2" spare at each end. Our anchor was just about poking into their cockpit - in the morning I was able to clean the ICW mustache off our bow from their swim platform!.

SFB at Moorhead City Yacht Basin

Immediately after arriving we enjoyed cocktails on their cockpit (shaded by our bow) and then went into town for dinner. The marina population was dominated by very nice and expensive Sport Fishing Boats. They were all gone before we woke up next morning. Jon and Bonnie were heading North next day, Deidre and I were planning to explore the area, so we parted ways again about 10 AM Saturday.