Southport to New Bern

Leaving Southport, NC we traveled up the Mighty Cape Fear River to the turn for Carolina Beach.  We were lucky to be blessed with a rising tide to provide a "push" as we navigated upstream because the ebb can result in some fairly strong current against boaters at the wrong time of day.  In fact we left quite early (for us) in order to take advantage of the tidal push. 

Along the stretch of the ICW from Carolina Beach to Swansboro there are about four bridges that have very specific opening times once per hour; some on the hour and some on the half-hour.  If boats arrive too early they mill around and wait - if they arrive too late, even by a minute, they wait nearly an hour.  Thus timing is critical.  Also there are few anchorages, actually only one, and almost no marinas along this stretch.  The anchorage is not to our liking, or at least Theresa doesn't much like it.  The bottom is soupy mud and the holding is poor, the wind often blows which makes for a sleepless night with poor holding.  Also the anchorage is in the Camp Lejeune Marine base and there are often night exercises going on which create noise, all in all not very restful. 

We were spared from having to anchor here by the kindness of others, yet again.  Our friends from RoyEl are originally from this area and they have a friend here with a dock he does not use.  Roy and Elvie called their buddy Ed and he kindly invited us to stop and use his dock.  Not only that but he was there to take our lines and he even cooked dinner for us.  We spent an evening sharing boating stories and life stories and now we have a new friend in Hampstead.  Thanks Ed!

Lauren Grace at Ed's dock in Hampstead
In the background is the Atlantic

In the past we have moved through North Carolina with venturing off of the Magenta Line that marks the path of the ICW on our charts.  This time we were interested in exploring a little so our plan was to skip a stop in Beaufort, which is nice but we have been there and done that, and spend some time in Historic New Bern.  This proved to be a great choice!

A PINK house on the way to Swansboro