Day 28 4 weeks on blue water!

We headed south bright and early. Today we are headed to Wrightsville Beach, NC. But that wasn't exactly the plan. As you all know, we are missing Michael. He is our meteorologist and navigator. Without him we have ran into our fair share of storms and this day we got a little off track.

Our original plan was to dock halfway to Wrightsville Beach at Scott’s Hill Marina.  Carrie and John were setting up the Navionics app and were having all sorts of issues.  It kept stopping them at bridges that we could pass under and then giving varying destination times.  As a result Carrie was calling different places and googling different bridges to ensure we could pass and would have a landing spot by dinner.

She eventually found a place that was private but would allow us to dock, for a very heavy fee, at their fuel dock between 5pm and 9am. She talked to the dock master over the phone and then via text updating her as we moved slowly down the canal. When we finally made it right before 5pm we called the marina over the VHF radio. “ Scott’s Hill Marina, Scott’s Hill Marina, this is Irish Eyes” but got no response.

This was a busy place and there where center console boats zipping in and out for gas and ice. Carrie decided to text the marina since they might be too busy to respond to our VHF call. The dockmaster responded right away that we needed to wait. John had Carrie text to make sure it was deep enough for us because the fuel dock looked like it was in pretty shallow waters. The dock master said it was very deep and we waited.

Finally, she said to come in and even though it still looked busy we did. The dock hands were everywhere and they grabbed our lines. They asked us if we needed gas and ice and we responded that we would appreciate that. Then we told the dock hand that we wanted to spin our boat around to make it easier to get out of the marina in the morning.

He looked at us with a very confused expression. “You can’t stay here,” he said. We told him we had been in touch with the dockmaster all day and she told us to come in. He asked us who we talked to over the radio and we explained that we had been texting because no one answered the radio.  He said, “We always answer the radio.”

That’s when our addled brains began to put it all together.  The strange changes in destination timing, the lack of response to VHF calls, the very shallow water we were now floating over, and the puzzles looks on people’s faces as we glided our large catamaran into their narrow docking area.

We had passed the marina of the dockmaster we had been communicating with over 2 hours before! We were too far to turn around and by now it was getting late and our only option was to make it to an anchorage at Wrightsville Beach.  Carrie called her daughter Sedona’s boyfriend to find out about tides and anchorage and get information about the difficulties we might face. Anthony said we would have an easy time of it and to just keep coming.

We got out of the small marina without issues. Our gas tanks were full and so was our ice chest. It was hot hot hot on the canal and we just missed the swing bridge that opens every 30 minutes so our concerns continued to mount. Those are the times you try to focus on the places you get to see,  the dolphins you get to witness, and the awesome people you get to visit.

We made it to Wrightsville beach before sunset and Sedona met us at the public docks with her car’s a/c cranking. We had some very fancy drinks at the bar where her boyfriend was working and finally began to relax. It was a really fun surprise having her meet us. We are also really excited that she will be joining us Sunday for a few days of sailing!  Maybe she can help us avoid storms and figure out where the heck we are going!