AquaFennatic Great Loop Blog: Southport North Carolina to Belhaven North Carolina

May 15^th – It was a warm sunny day with the winds increasing throughout the day and settling down in the evening. We left the Southport Marina this morning and headed 67 miles north across the Cape Fear river and along the ICW to Lejeune Military Reserve in North Carolina and anchored in Mile Hammack Bay. We had to go through a few bridges that opened on the hour or half hour thus we had to time our travels and at some points we had to speed up or slow down to make the next bridge. As we approached our anchorage we hit a shoal as we rounded a corner on the ICW … darn! There’s no vibration thus I don’t think there’s any damage to the underwater gear however I’ll have to check it out the next time I go snorkeling. In Hammack Bay we saw Helicopter pilots practising maneuvers and there seemed to be live large weapon fire in the area that created large booms and shook everything. It was definitely an interesting experience. We need to be through the next bridge by 7:00am tomorrow since it will be closed for live firing exercises for most of the day tomorrow.

May 16^th – It was a hot sunny day with moderate to light winds. We pulled up our anchor extra early to get through a swing bridge before it was closed for most of the day for live firing exercises. A bunch of boats left the harbor at the same time and went directly through the bridge with us. We then continued 44 miles north along the ICW to Beaufort North Carolina and dropped our anchor in front of the City marina. We have a fabulous view with a park on one side with wild horses that roam the beach and the city on the other side with all kinds of ongoing activities and a large number of mega yachts in the slips at the marina. We went to the dingy dock and then walked up to the Piggly Wiggly (LOL … this makes me laugh!) to get provisions. We then loaded them on the boat and then went back to town to do the regular tourist things including visiting the Maritime museum that has a whole section dedicated to Black Beard the pirate. Afterwards we stopped in at a restaurant called the Dock House for dinner and drinks and returned back to the boat as sunset was approaching. All kinds of boats arrived during the evening and anchored in the middle of the channel in front of the town … I was quite surprised that they would allow this since it would make life difficult for those that tried to pass by all of these anchored vessels.

May 17^th – It was a hot sunny day with moderate winds. We pulled up our anchor from Beaufort and headed north 72 miles along the ICW to the Belhaven North Carolina Town dock. As we travelled today there were approximately 6 Sabre yachts running at high speed down the rivers giving each boat a slow pass along their way. I’m not sure if it was a rendezvous of some sort or a group of boats being moved to a boat show??? We had a couple of major rivers to cross that looked more like large lakes thus we gave the boat a good run today. When we arrived we tied up to the T-head on the town dock and just relaxed. We then went for a short walk but it felt like over 100 degrees F thus we quickly headed back to the boat to let the breeze from the bay cool us off.