Day 341 – 347; 4/29 – 5/5: We’ve covered a lot of ground, or should we say water, in the last 7 days. Check out how far we went in the month of April below. That’s 3 states in April, 19 states and provinces overall on our trip!
With so much going on in our lives right now, and maybe just a little bit of “get-home-itis,” we decided to pick up the pace a little and are shooting for crossing our wake at AYC on Saturday, 5/18. That puts us back in our ‘dirt home’ on 5/19 having completed the Great Loop just 1 week short of a year!
It’s not that we are flying through ports and not stopping to smell the roses at all, but with the commitment we just made to a winter home in Savannah and summering in Annapolis, we will be traveling these waters again many more times and will be able to stop to really tour the towns on our way up and down the coast in the future. Loopers say this stretch of SC, NC and the Chesapeake Bay is one of their favorites, so we are feeling blessed that we will get to enjoy it over and over again!
We’ve laid out a plan where we travel 3-6 hours each day, arrive in port no later than 3:00 pm and enjoy our evening there, then do it again. That being said, we will stay in a couple ports for 2 days, but have our eyes on getting home. Many loopers leave their boats for weeks and even months at a time to go home for various and sundry reasons, but we’ve not done that.
So back to our journey….Monday, 4/29 brought us to North Myrtle Beach, SC – an area we know quite well because of the beach house. It was about a 5 hour run and Carol had a Board call in the middle of it. As we cruised up the ICW, we were twice contacted by folks who enjoy seeing the loopers go by. Bryan has a FB group called “Show us your boat” and videoed us as we went by, then contacted us on the radio as to where we could see the video. Here it is and check out the FB group for lots of cool boats on the ICW.
Then “Ripple Doug” and Lee on Ineffable called on the radio seeing us approaching on NEBO and said they’d be taking some “glamour shots” and a video from their deck as we went by. Both were kind enough to send them to us…. See below!
It was a fun day seeing the familiar landmarks of NMB by boat… except for the green head flies! While the bridge is enclosed with Isinglass on the front and sides with screen on the back, we need to keep the front isinglass open for air flow, which gave those little terrorists their entry point. We were a force to be reckoned with, however, and Gary’s swatting expertise along with the racquet shaped zapper in Carol’s hands produced a high body count. Hundreds of kills for the Z’s and zero bites for the Greenies!
We docked at Lightkeepers Marina right near the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club within walking distance to a restaurant called Clark’s. We went there for dinner; we’ve been there twice now and sadly, don’t recommend it. Steaks were over cooked (actually so badly had to send it back) and not very good quality for the price. A ribeye should not be tough and chewy.
Tuesday, 4/30 we were up and out early (8:00 am) to thread the needle on 2 meetings for Carol; one at 9:30 underway and one at 1:00 just after we would arrive in Southport, NC. This was a Safe Harbor Marina and nice enough with a waterfront restaurant just off the pier. We were a distance from the town so didn’t really go check it out, although we heard great things. In chatting with another boater (not looping, they live aboard and go up and down the coast) they raved about Joseph’s Italian restaurant in the building that looked like condos at the entrance to the marina. They stop here just to go to Joseph’s. With that recommendation,we changed our dinner plans from eating in to eating there and it did not disappoint….in fact it was fabulous. So torn by all the great choices, we ordered a lasagna to go and had that for lunch on Wednesday. Definitely recommend Joseph’s!
Wednesday, 5/1 we were up and out by 8:45 am with slightly overcast skies and spitty rain. It was about a 6 hour run to Mile Hammock Bay where we planned to anchor for the night. It was also a pretty big milestone – we crossed the 6000 mile mark of our trip! Commemorating this milestone, we were joined by dolphins along the way. We arrived around 4:00 pm and enjoyed watching the guys fishing on the shore as we enjoyed dinner alfresco in the cockpit. We seared chicken breasts, then topped them with pesto, fresh mozzarella and a slice of tomato caprese style and finished them in the oven to melt the cheese. Yum! Will definitely make that again. What we didn’t know was that one of those fisherman was also taking pics of us and posted it in the Great Loop FB group the next day. It’s been a week of photos and videos on social media!
Thursday, 5/2 we were off to Beaufort, NC pronounced Bo-fert unlike its SC twin pronounced Beau-fert like beau-tiful. These towns really know who the locals are by how they pronounce their names. Beaufort is very close to Topsail (pronounced Top-sil) and Atlantic Beach where our good friends Dave and Maria Inch have a condo, so we looked forward to dinner with them. We were out around 9:45 to catch the 10:00 am opening of the Onslow Beach Drawbridge. It was a very narrow passage due to a construction barge taking up more than half of the space. Our timing was great dumb luck as we were later informed that the bridge would be shut down for a week starting 5/13! If we had stayed on our original plan of getting home mid June, we may have been stuck there a while. We transited with three other boats and then were immediately stopped by a Marine police boat and instructed we’d need to anchor and wait an hour before proceeding north. Camp Lejeune was conducting live fire practice, so of course, we dutifully complied as we could hear the rounds off in the distance.
We arrived at the Town Creek Marina around 3:15 and were glad to see they had a courtesy car, so we took advantage of that and provisioned at the local Piggly Wiggly…. Where do they come up with the names of Grocery stores? Around 5:00 the Inches came by and we enjoyed a short tour of Beaufort before heading to dinner at Moonrakers. The food and company were outstanding as we ate out on the deck overlooking the water. It was nice to catch up with them and hear all about the wonders of Grandparent-hood. Maybe someday! Hint-Hint!
Beaufort was the 3rd largest port in NC at the time of the American Revolution. The town escaped destruction during the Civil War and became a resort destination for much of the 20th century. The town’s tourism industry got a boost in 1996 when the remains of Blackbeard’s sunken flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, was discovered in 22 feet of water in the silted inlet just off of Beaufort. We look forward to returning to Beaufort and exploring all she has to offer.
Friday, 5/3 we were up and out in the morning again, leaving around 9:30 am headed to Oriental, NC and Whittaker Point Marina. It was about a 3 hour run of mostly winding river/channel of the ICW before it opened up as we headed into Oriental. We docked on the T-head that had to be the longest, turny walk on a pier we’ve ever seen – a bit of a strange pier design. Oh well…. It certainly made the decision easy if we were going to go ashore and use their gas grill for dinner or just use ours on the boat! Oddly, even though we shut down as many things as we could, we continue to pop the breaker on the power pedestal. Super nice people trying to help, but not sure what the issue was. Alas it was only for one night.
This was a marina that was full of boats, but no cars in the parking lot; Had a courtesy car which Carol gladly took to go get a badly needed pedicure. The closest nail salon was 20 minutes away. The AC barely worked and the seat belt wouldn’t stay buckled on the drivers side so she had to buckle it into the passengers buckle. The ride there was 80% farmland and 20% very tired homes and businesses. Not sure if it was a blessing or a curse for the towns again, but there was a Walmart next door to the nail salon. We never saw anyone else in the marina except for the dock hand and couple guys fishing off the pier. It was a quiet dinner and a movie on board, then up and out early the next morning.
Saturday, 5/4 we were out around 9:45 am and off to Belhaven, NC. Belhaven means “beautiful harbor.” It was a nice open water run on the Neuse River, then back on the ICW to more open water on the Pamlico River. It was another battle with the green heads (Z’s win again) and dockage at the Grand Manor Marina, formerly known as River Forest Marina. The winds were howling but we docked without issue with the winds keeping us off the pier. We were facing differently than two other loopers there (Marydale and Wanderlust, Too) who were getting quite the ride. Marydale’s large aft cabin would make it difficult to get on and off from the pier, never mind the wind and waves pitching it up and down by a foot or two. Wanderlust, Too’s Captain came by to say hello, but the first mate didn’t want to risk getting off the boat so we never met her. I wouldn’t have wanted to be them in that wind. Legacy is so much heavier than those two other boats, we rode it like a champ with no issues.
Grand Manor Marina is under new ownership and really trying to cater to loopers. They offer free golf carts to take into town (which we did) and found the town to be super cute and quaint with an Ace Hardware store, ice cream shop, a few restaurants and of course other shops with women’s apparel. There was a party going on at a newly opened business: Down East Preservation. We inquired what was going on at one of the shops and found out it was open to all with free food and beer – wanting to introduce the business and social club to the locals. Well Hells Bells, we went by! There was live entertainment, food and a keg. We never quite figured out what they did and who was in charge, but we had a beer and sat a while! Fun Fact: Did you know that the last leg of the Intracoastal Waterway was officially opened in Belhaven in 1928 with the completion of the Alligator Pungo Canal? A grand celebration at the River Forest Manor, co-located with the marina, marked the occasion.
Marydale was out before us, fighting the wind and waves to get out of their slip. It was tough. Wanderlust, Too was heading home for a month leaving the boat, which was still bouncing all over the place. That motion was definitely enough to introduce some seasickness, but we never found out if it did. We easily moved away from the dock when it was our time to leave, aided by the wind instead of having to fight it like Marydale.
Sunday, 5/5 we were off to an anchorage on Alligator River (we didn’t see any alligators) but it was on and off spitty rain for the day. We ran inside from the pilot house a couple times but were mostly on the bridge. It was about a 6 hour run partially on the aforementioned canal, although were were able to pretty much run at speed with good depth, and partially on the open water on the Alligator River. We arrived around 3:30 pm after picking our way through tons of crab pots which took both of our eyes on the water to navigate safely. We were the only ones in the anchorage and as the sun went down. It cooled off enough that we did’t even need to run the generator for the AC and opened the windows for the night. We did run the gennie to fire up the oven and make some enchiladas for dinner in honor or Cinco De Mayo.
Tomorrow we are off to Coinjock, NC and then Norfolk, VA inching our way home!
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