At Harbour Village Marina in position 34:23.16N, 077:38.27W
AJAYA'S CRUISE
Phil & Nikki Hoskins
Thu 4 Jun 2009 17:01
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Our day's trip along the ICW was more
challenging than of late as we had to negotiate the Cape Fear inlet upstream for
11 miles before the ICW branched off again. Fortunately the weather was kind and
we had a following breeze, however, despite asking about the tidal current
situation at the marina we had just left and delaying our departure until 1100am
to await low water we still had to fight an ebb current of 2 knots which
made a slow passage up to the turn off for Snow's Cut. The cut also had
challenges - rip tides through shallow water, with a confusing set of buoys to
add to the tension. We were hailed by a small speed boat who asked if we
knew the way through the cut. Well, we had the charts which was more than he
had, so he followed us through and then sped off once he was in deeper
water.
The ICW was still hugging the coast with numerous
small inlets from the sea where dolphins or porpoises would enter to feed
in the ICW. These aren't the sort to be prancing around in your bow wave like
the Atlantic Spotted Dolphins we have seen so many of. These are more
solitary, swimming only in ones and twos through the shallow
water.
We were also back in dreaded horse fly territory.
They are called stable flies in the USA, however there's nothing stable about
their behaviour, zooming into the cockpit at high speed and taking a painful
bite out of whichever part of our legs or arms they can get away with landing
on. If they miss first time they sit on the underside of the bimini waiting for
another chance when we are concentrating on something else. Their bites can be
very painful and our legs and arms now feel like pin cushions. Also, for some
strange reason we can't quite understand, our feet have swollen up over the last
few days.Is it the bites or the insect repellent we are using, which doesn't
seem to be effective in repelling these biting swines. The two fly swats we
bought in the Caribbean have been working overtime, although of course they only
give us satisfaction in a revengeful way, as, whenever you kill the current
batch another 2 or 3 arrive.to take their place.
Our night's stopover was in Harbour Village Marina,
a small marina enclosed by properties just off the main channel. We docked
on the fuel berth in front of the Legend 41 we had been following all day. A
welcome shower, meal onboard and early to bed was how our evening went, ready
for a relatively early start the next morning.
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