Having talked to a few people, I ascertained that I
could get up to Wrightsville with care; the couple on the sailboat next to me
also gave me a phone number to call for a free mooring in New York! We left Southport on the morning of Monday 11th
in the hope of hitting the right tide in the Cape Fear River and current in the
Snows Cut, both of which I failed I was too early and had tide and current
against me but not enough to worry about and cleared under my first bridge in
the cut,
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| Snows cut |
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| Wrightsville |
arriving in the anchorage at Wrightsville beach at 3pm On the
Intracoastal we met everything from army boats to jet skis towing kids, here I
found the next stage is notorious for shoaling so will have to go out and sail
up to Beaufort, however with the wind blowing from the North I had to wait.
Wrightsville is a holiday town with loads of restaurants and beachwear shops
and about 5miles of beach!
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| Anchorage |
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| Wrightsville Beach |
The wind finally changed, it started coming round to
the east unfortunately it also died to a light breeze, but I decided to go for
it especially as another nasty storm was forming off Bermuda, so we left
Wrightsville at about 5pm to catch the high tide at the entrance, unfortunately
I made too good a time and the tide was still coming in as I exited, leaving
the entrance channel into a short swell on the nose, which eased to a normal
long Atlantic swell on the starboard bow neither of which was too
uncomfortable; the wind blowing between force 0-3from E to SE to W to N, but
for all that was a pleasant trip doing 3-4 knots and not fighting current,
until entering the Beaufort Inlet, timing our entrance at midtide slowing us down to 1-2 knots and ploughing
through two sets of overfalls, however once inside things eased a bit and
finding the right channel was not difficult. The marina put me on an inside
berth, leaving the big plastic fishing boats on the outside, which was a bit
hairy with wind and current (from different directions) but got in without
mishap.
The historic town of Beaufort is very similar to
Southport, with plenty of places to eat and buy clothes and food shopping about
3 miles out, although the marina does have courtesy cars, I did not trust
myself to the metal monsters and pulled out my bicycle, once forgetting the key
so had to walk back to the boat and back to the supermarket to free
bicycle!
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| Beaufort Village |
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| Beaufort Village |
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| Beaufort Docks marina |
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