Georgetown to Wilmington and we finish with the ICW.

34:15.37N 79:56.87W

17th May 2015

8329 Miles from Ramsgate by log.

            So that is it for the Intra coastal waterway, we are now moored alongside in Cape Fear Marina 12 miles up river from the ICW and our next port of call is planned to be Bermuda. After leaving Georgetown we did as predicted go North for about 30 miles (26 to be precise) and dropped anchor in a little side river next to Bucksport marina. This turned out to be a bit of a bonus stopover as when we went ashore in the dinghy we found that this little out of the way place had been invaded by the Harley Davidson brigade for bike week. It is estimated that 25,000 Harley Davidson’s arrive for Bike Week in South Carolina every year, not all of them at Bucksport I hasten to add. There was a very local live band singing away and biker people everywhere having a good old time and so to cut a long story short we joined in and had a good old time to. The evening ended with us sharing a table with the barmaid Sarah, whose father came from Coventry, but we didn’t hold that against her, and the marina manager Jeff. Oh and we were the last ones to leave, I did rather expect more from the Harley boys and Girls but they are all middle aged stock brokers in the day time I expect. Jeff was telling the tale of the American yachtsman who was in the news recently for surviving 60 odd days in a dismasted yacht after being hit by a storm in the gulf stream. He kept his yacht at Bucksport and worked at the marina in exchange for mooring and definitely seems to have had a few issues but just upped and disappeared one day turning up a couple of months later on the television having been rescued by the Coast Guard.

Images from Bucksport clockwise…. The band….which had more members than teeth, Local wildlife in the open air bar,

the rescued yachtsman with marina manager Jeff in the background and Biker week gets going.

Bucksport is a great little stop over, soooo friendly and helpful. Jeff walked us back to the dinghy opening his office on the way as he had stored some home made sausages that we had bought earlier in his fridge while we had a beer or two. As we got into the dinghy the trees and swampland around us was echoing with a strange whooo-ump whooo-ump noise, Jeff made a casual comment of, “don’t worry about that it is just the Gators mating call, they sound pretty frisky tonight”, and so with that reassuring note we set off into the dark rowing our dinghy back to Spectra which was out there somewhere invisible to the human eye as we had forgotten to turn the anchor lights on before going ashore.  Once back on board we shone our big spot light along the shoreline and picked up a whole series of twinkling reflections from the Alligators’ eyes in the reeds. I must point out here that that was a bit of a worry for me, I am a city boy at heart and anything more ferocious than a Trafalgar square pigeon needs to be in a cage in my opinion.

With last nights over sexed Alligators in mind Spectra cruise management cancelled the water aerobics session scheduled for the morning and replaced it with calisthenics on the fore deck, (no one turned up).   

Images of the Intracoastal clockwise…if you look closely there are turtles on the log, more bumps on a log, big fisherman in a small boat, nice bridge.

Before leaving Bucksport we decided to fill up on water and diesel. I  have been deliberately running the tanks down to get an accurate estimate of fuel consumption and I am now confident that with full tanks we could motor 24 hours non stop for over 5 days which hopefully will never happen. Our destination for the day was a little river and fishing community called Calabash 36 miles north east from Bucksport. The journey was actually pretty good, the depths stayed fairly constant at around 2 meters below the keel and we held the tide all of the way going at nearly 8 knots at one stage. The only tricky part was at the Shallotte Inlet were temporary buoyage had been set up because of shoaling. It involved a really tight set of little dog legs which took us almost back on ourselves at one point and the depth under the keel dropped to 0.3 meters which is always a worry. Anyway what doesn’t kill you and all that, we got through it and the rest was plain sailing apart from the final entry to the anchorage. Again as we turned to port off the ICW the depth disappeared and we had to very tentatively edge our way back and forward until we found enough water to get into the Calabash river. As soon as we were over the bar the depth went to 5 meters and we finally dropped the anchor just behind another British yacht that we later discovered was heading south for Florida. Calabash itself was about a mile up the river and so it was out with the trusty dinghy and off we went. A small collection of shrimp boats came into sight moored to Port and alongside one of them was the Catamaran ‘Sweet Sensation’ who we later found out had overtaken us while we were anchored in Bucksport. After a few hellos the Captain of the shrimp boat kindly said that we could tie up behind him and use his dock, we did tried to buy some shrimp from him but the Carolina shrimp season doesn’t start until this weekend and so our great plan for cheap seafood was scuppered. With what is now typical American hospitality the boats engineer offered  (insisted) to drive us into town for groceries and so with Norma in the cab busily engaged in conversation with Jay I jumped into the back of his pickup along with the fishnets and welding gear and we headed for the bright lights of Calabash. Well the lights were not so bright, but we did stock up with the essentials of life, beer and bread while Jay waited to run us back, they are really so helpful to complete strangers here.

More images of the Intracoastal clockwise… cable car to get golfers from one side to the other..

bottom of cable car 65ft-our mast 61.5 ft,

A house we would like to build in the UK, how to keep the bottom of your yacht clean, and the Calabush river anchorage.

Later that evening we ate in a waterside restaurant suggested by Jay (I am pretty sure it is family) with the crew of ‘Sweet Sensation’. Kevin, Chris and Graeme were great company as we tucked into a fried seafood meal and swapped sailing war stories. They come from Brightlingsea and as previously mentioned are doing the great loop and so will be on the ICW for some time. One interesting point was that after we left Charlestown they had been boarded by the Coast Guard and told that they had to check in every time that they moved the boat. As like us they hadn’t been doing that they were given a written warning and the threat of a $5000 fine. As we last called the Coast Guard from St Augustine we decided that we had better get our act together. On arrival at Wilmington I gave them a call only to be met with little interest and the statement that if I hadn’t been outside of the US I didn’t need to call. I told the story of ‘Sweet Sensation’ and the fine threat to which he said, “yeah right, that’s not going to happen”. Anyway I insisted he took our US cruising license number and got his name as a reference just in case we hit problems later. There is a problem here in that each Coast Guard sector and even each Coast Guard officer seem to interpret the rules differently and so you just have to keep smiling and get a reference for each conversation to cover yourself. While on the phone to the Wilmington Coast Guard I got myself transferred to immigration to check on the procedure for departing. The answer is there are none, they do not issue departure paperwork and you just go, as I said it can be confusing. I questioned them quite closely and said the crew were flying in on commercial airlines, but no the answer stayed the same, you can just go and so we will. On the bright side we do have exit papers from Puerto Rico and so we can use them if we need anything on arrival at a Bermuda. 

As you have probably guessed from the above we have arrived in Wilmington and so our 775 mile Intra Coastal Waterway odyssey is at an end. I wouldn’t say it has been all fun but it has certainly been a great part of the adventure and we are both very happy that we decided to do it. I took advantage of the Cape fear inlet area to test the water maker as the water was salty, and the water maker has been playing up recently. I have now rigged it to flow either into the tanks or the bilge and so by using the manual override I can get it going and then simply taste the water. Once we have good water flowing I can divert it into the water tanks and check it at intervals. Anyway I am happy to report that it all worked fine and so that is one worry bead put to bed. After passing through down town Wilmington and the permanently moored battleship USS North Carolina we arrived at  Cape Fear Marina which is possibly the friendliest place we have been to so far and that’s saying something. Three boat owners, including Anthony the live aboard dock master, who was actually off duty, helped moor us up and all got involved with sorting out our power connection. Dan and Paula lent us a domestic power cable which saved the day and we now have 240v of lovely power flowing through the boat, the batteries are fully charged, the fridge is on and the beer is cold, happy days indeed. The first night we were invited aboard Dan and Paula’s lovely 1960’s wooden motorboat for sundowners and we met up with Sport the ships hound. And so with the sun going down good company and a dog to stroke we had a very pleasant first night in Wilmington. The next morning I was up early with the pressure washer cleaning the accumulated muck from the ICW from our decks and the sides. Dan offered to take Norma to the local store for groceries which was really helpful and so we now have a fully stocked fridge complete with a bottle of fizzy stuff ready for Tommy and Sues arrival on Sunday. Dan has also offered us the use of his Jeep any time he isn’t using it, as I said amazingly helpful and friendly.

USS North Carolina

Going, Going, Gone the trains must be over a mile long…Railway bridge upstream from our pontoon

Spectra is looking a lot more respectable after a days non stop cleaning and looking quite good if I say so myself, we have put on clean underwear and are now standing by for Tommy’s inspection of the yacht. If you remember way back to the Florida blogs we passed a beautiful black Vagabond anchored outside of a boat show on the way. It is now moored just down the pontoon from us and so we have competition. There is also a rather nice and very recently painted Formosa 52 here which is bigger than Spectra at over 60 ft but of a similar design, I have of course been over chatting to the owners, as you do. Last night we had Dan, Paula and Sport aboard for a reciprocal sundowners and later we were joined by Billy who lives on the boat next door, so a good night, which actually ended just into Sunday morning, was had by all.

Very nice examples of a Vagabond and Formosa share our marina in Wilmington.

Watch this space for the next exciting episode from the adventures of Spectra………