Carolina Beach State Park to Topsail Beach

Wednesday, 27 May 2015

We didn't did underway until 1130 today.  Carolina Beach State Park is beautiful, and a hard place to leave!

We took one detour off the ICW, thru Shinn Creek channel to the SE to Banks Channel to the NE to Motts Channel and back into the ICW.  Think of it as the drive-by of Wrightsville Beach.

BTW, the Wrightsville Bridge only had a clearance of 16', instead of the 20' on our list, putting me scrambling to lay down a couple of antenna.

We continued up the ICW, overtaking 5 French sailing sloops traveling together.  We went through a tricky spot on the ICW, and I could tell by watching the AIS that it had stumped a couple of them. 

We missed seeing all the osprey nests yesterday, but they were back today!  I saw several babies.  Photographing them while underway is a little more difficult.

We went into the northern, marked channel for Topsail Beach, and found a nice anchorage at N 34 23.614' W 077 35.878' and launched the dinghy.  We had a lovely cruise by dinghy to the SW with the dogs, enjoying the pre-sunset.  Then we returned to the MERCY to load the small boat back up, and watch the sun go down.   We eventually saw the five French sailboats go past on the ICW.

Barefoot Marina, Myrtle Beach, SC to Carolina Beach State Park, NC

Tuesday, 26 May 2015

We walked the dogs, topped the water off, disposed of the trash, pumped out, and headed north again on a falling tide.  

We went through the "rock pile," the dreaded place where the ICW is cut through rock.  Maybe I missed something, listening to all the folks worrying about hitting rocks, but, rocks don't move.  If you stay in the channel, you won't hit a rock.  Where the "ditch" cuts through sand, the sand shifts, and can cause shoaling... but, that's another story.

We fell in behind "Capt Dennis," a shrimpboat we followed as far as a little above Holden Beach, where he turned northward in the creek to go get some work done.

Once we got away from the Myrtle Beach area, the landscape changed a little.  We were back into salt marshes, with a couple of sandy inlets towards the Atlantic.

The sandy areas around Lockwood's Folly Island looked so inviting that I considered stopping to play, but, there was a lot of dredging in the area, and the area didn't look very conducive to day anchoring on this particular day.

We did the drive-by at Southport, NC, and saw that the "free" docks appeared to be full, though the restaurants smelled really good!

Our destination for the night was a nice little marina at a North Carolina State Park, Carolina Beach State Park.  For $30/night, we're tied to a nice floating dock with 50amp service.  The grounds are great for walking the dogs.  There are 6 miles of hiking trails, a single washer and drier $1/load, showers, restrooms, and a small store at the office.  Its a pretty nice place.

The current sets sideways to the channel, which isn't very wide, but, there is 5'+ @ MLW.  There is no current in the marina. 

Mercy, keeping the watch.