One Mile Hammock

Thursday June 7, 2012
34 33.049N
77 19.433W

Today was a "big day", 9 hours and 65 statute miles. This was not our intention but just the way it worked out.   Tonight we are parked in a "lake" that was dredged during WWII so that the marines could practice loading and unloading troop ships without going out into the nearby Atlantic, where the German U-boats were a threat.. The "lake" is a small part of Camp LeJeune which is a large Marine Base. Tomorrow we will start early and expect be in the Beaufort area after lunch.

Look out behind!

We were underway by about 9:15AM and headed NE up the Cape Fear river. There is a "real" shipping channel up the river and soon enough we were being overtaken by a large freighter. We kept out of his way and let him pass. After about 10 miles of the river, we took a cut over to the coast and resumed the familiar ICW routine. Except, that in NC the bridges all seem to open only once per hour. To lose an hour at a bridge is frustrating and awkward, so the whole day turned out to be an exercise in catching the bridges.

I think he has "Rght of way"

We were thinking we would anchor for the night a little South of Wrightsville Beach, but we were running with the tide and "Tide Hiker" was living up to its name as we "raced" along at 10 plus knots! Then it was 12:55 PM and the Wrightsville Bridge was opening in front of me and I just could not resist the temptation to sail right thru, and thereby Plan I went out of the window. The next bridge was at "Figure of 8 Island" just 6 miles away, and now we were fighting the tide, so that was just perfect and we sailed thru it. Which left all of our planned anchorages behind us, and the only feasible solution was to continue to One Mile Hammock. Oh well. The benefit is that we are now only a day from Beaufort "Gateway to the Outer Banks". We seem to be at the start of a favorable weather pattern, which may give us our chance to venture out into the Atlantic and maybe go to Cape Lookout for a night. We will see.

One Mile hammock turned out to be a poor anchorage, I would not chose it again. But it was a clear and cool evening, with a great sunset. I got to see the sunset from the boat deck where I was grilling our dinner.