15 November – 16 November – Morehead City – Bald Head Island, NC
The winds and rain have passed by Morehead City, and it is now time to leave. We definitely enjoyed our 6 nights here, discovering some mighty fine restaurants, but are thrilled to be on our way again.
We were very pleased to calculate. while planning our departure, to be at or near slack water in Morehead City upon our departure and arriving in Bald Head Island at slack water if we maintained about 5 – 5.5 knots per hour.
As we left Beaufort Inlet, a couple of dolphins played off our starboard side, and we hoped this was a good omen for what we expected to be a pretty uneventful 24 hour overnight offshore passage.
Listening to the radio from the ocean we heard alot of chatter from the vessels navigating the ICW, announcements about shoaling, crab pots and other hazards in the channel, boats passing each other with a slow pass, others getting yelled at because they didn’t slow down and caused big wakes, inoperable bridges, etc. We were very glad we made the decision to go offshore as we found it to be so much more peaceful on the big water.
As the sun set and the temperature got cooler, we closed up the enclosure and the cockpit stayed at a pretty comfortable temperature, not needing to fire up the heater.
Bob traded his deck shoes for his fuzzy slippers for the night, keeping his feet toasty warm. We traded times on watch, and both decided to sleep in the cockpit when we were off watch to be ready for each other if anything arose that required attention.
The night was quiet, very quiet. We would check AIS regularly to learn of any other boats that would be approaching our vicinity, and there was only one that passed us in the early afternoon. Once the sun went down there was only one other vessel we ever saw on AIS that could have come close to us but made a turn long before and passed by a couple of miles away from us. The radar screen was blank most of the night, which really made us both wonder if it was even working. It was – but there was just no other vessels out tonight.
The moon was still pretty bright, as the Super Moon had been the previous night. So, when it wasn’t behind the clouds, the moon lit up the water. For the twelve hours of darkness we took turns watching the instruments, and peering into the dark to be sure there was nothing else out there, as the autopilot steered the boat forward to Bald Head Island.
Around 3am, with Bob asleep and Christina on watch, she looked out and saw what appeared to be funny looking waves in the dark water. After looking hard, she realized that they weren’t waves at all but rather a pod of dolphins that were swimming along side both sides of the boat. It was pretty magical as they stayed with us for a while, and made for great middle of the night companions.
Alot of cruisers avoid making the passage around Frying Pan Shoals and Cape Fear inlet. The shoals come pretty far out into the ocean, but with good charts and proper planning of our course, we did not have any concerns or worries as the depth dropped from over 60 feet to just 30 as we passed over the shoals.
In bad weather we know rounding the Cape and transiting the inlet can be daunting and challenging, but the weather this morning was clear and calm. We turned into the shipping channel approaching Cape Fear Inlet with the sun rising, 2 hours ahead of schedule. There was a bit of traffic as working boats were starting their days, but nothing that caused any concern.
We had planned to time our arrival with slack water as the current here is pretty strong, and we have to cross the current to enter the channel into Bald Head Island Marina. But, arriving two hours early means we have to deal with current. Bob has been getting more and more practice with this and he glided Dreamtime across the current into the marina channel beautifully.
We arrived at the marina before they were open. So, we pulled up to the fuel dock, tied up and planned to wait a short while.
We have heard great things about Bald Head Island Marina and the island itself where there are no cars and everyone gets around on golf carts. Most workers don’t live here but rather commute via the hourly ferry between Southport and the island. It is mostly a vacation/holiday destination and it is at the end of the season. We were looking forward to renting a golf cart and exploring and re-provisioning at the local market the next day, but after looking at the weather forecasts for the next few days, we realized that if we didn’t leave tomorrow (Thursday) we probably wouldn’t want to leave until Tuesday. The forecasts all converged and agreed that the wind would be howling as a cold front makes its way up the coast. If we leave tomorrow, we will get ahead of the front, and we could wait out any bad weather in Charleston, South Carolina.
We plan to come back to Bald Head Island again and see the sights next time But for now, we will plan for a midday departure tomorrow and try to find a marina in Charleston.
Finding a marina with space available ended up being more difficult than expected. Hurricane Matthew had hit Charleston pretty hard. Charleston City Marina where we stayed last November has no availability until early December, Charleston Maritime Centre where we stayed in April was destroyed and is closed indefinitely, St John’s Yacht Center was severely damaged and they lost most of their transient dockage, Charleston Harbor Marina couldn’t commit one way or another and said they would give us a call back, even Cooper River Marina which was our last resort due to its location was full and couldn’t say when they might have availability again. We’ll just go to bed tonight, wake up in the morning, check the weather again and see if anything opens up. If not, we’ll stay here for a few days, there are definitely worse places to be stuck. This is some of life’s uncertainty when living the life of cruisers.