At Mile Hammock Bay - Camp LeJune NC this evening

We pulled the hook in the South River this morning at 0700 (well past sunrise).

By 0900 we had motored back into the Neuse River, and then down Adams Creek, past Cedar Creek (which is our normal anchorage spot)...

We could have done that portion of the trip the afternoon, of the day before...which would have put us 2 hours closer to Beaufort, NC at the time of weighing anchor, this morning.

BUT.... the disadvantage would have been... that two hours saved would have put us at the Atlantic Beach Bridge in Moorehead city at high tide, and Brian, and Sheila (s/v Moonshadow) would NOT have made it under the bridge... with their 63+ foot mast. UG!!!!

SO.... it was a trade off....   (which would later make us very late at the decision point of Swansboro, NC).

Even waiting for a falling tide... there were two boats anchored there...waiting for more tide to fall.... Makes us glad that our rig is only 60'-9" tall.

We're still dragging the dinghy, which makes it easy to visit friends at anchorages... but costs us fuel, and speed every day...

Brian and Shiela decided that they would anchor at Swansboro, upstream of the low bridge.... I (dean) hate that anchorage and would only anchor there again if I had no choice.... Susan and I decided we would take the last two hours of daylight and run like heck for Mile Hammock Bay... some 14 miles farther on down the AICW.   We'd also take our chances with the Onslow Beach Bridge, right before Mile Hammock Bay.

We made it 20 minutes before sundown.... and guess who's anchored next to us.... s/v "Second Wind" (Bill and Laura... charterboat people from Hop-0-Nose).  How wierd... They had an interuption in their trip south, as well... Laura's dad passed away... and necessitated a trip home.

The last time we saw the s/v "Second Wind" was off the coast of NJ. We had weighed anchor with Second Wind at Atlantic Highlands and set out for Delaware Bay.

But, about midnight, Susan and I opted to stop at Atlantic City; Bill and Laura decided to press-ON to Delaware Bay.

SO...............anyway.... the weather is not really cooperating with respect to 'jumping outside'.... storm coming.... and the ocean is still a wreck from TS "SEAN" out there...

The end result is we continue to slog along in the AICW....for a while until we get a weather window...

OH... we got that first "ICW-grounding" out of the way today.... 

you always worry about the " first one..".

WELL....we it a mud-mound at about 7.8 knots.... while motoring right in the middle of the channel.... Whooomp!!! UP and over.... must have raised the AB about a foot out of the water.... then we slid down the back side, but going a whole lot slower....

We had to laugh.... We joked about that being the JOE POOLER (s/v C-Note) school of bottom cleaning.... Joe used say..."there !!!!... that'll take care of the pesky barnacles on the bottom... CRUNCH!!!"