Carolina in My Mind

* Georgetown, SC to Oriental, NC *

228 miles and 5 cruising days –

The more time we spend here, the more we understand the homesickness James Taylor felt when he wrote Carolina in my Mind about his home state of North Carolina. Happily, we still have more of North Carolina to traverse and we will cruise back through in the fall.

In my mind, I’m gone to Carolina
Can’t you see the sunshine?
Can’t you just feel the moon shinin’?
Ain’t it just like a friend of mine
To hit me from behind?
Yes, I’m gone to Carolina in my mind

– James Taylor

Myrtle Beach would be our last port in South Carolina as we made our way through the winding Wacamaw River. The Intracoastal Waterway narrowed, and the trees have returned. In some places it looks very much like our home waters of the Ohio River. Around each bend you just never just know what you might find in the middle of nowhere! Hotdogs or frozen mixers anyone? 

Halfway through our 50-mile trip, it was a return to civilization with houses aligning the ICW one after another. It was an extremely cool morning (cool now that we are more used to the sunshine) and we had to bundle up on the fly bridge.

We docked in front of Greg Norman’s restaurant at Barefoot Landing, a quasi-free dock. It’s mentioned in the guidebooks and forums, many have spent the night with no issues, but there may be one small sign that says no overnight docking.

Being a Monday and early in the summer season, we were the only ones there, and the area was not busy. We stayed with no issues. It was close to all the activity of Barefoot Landing, shops, games, restaurants, and entertainment are all found in the complex anchored around a small lake with docks on the ICW.

We turned in early after walking the grounds and dinner at LuLu’s, tired from our day on the water, to be awoken by the Monday night fireworks at 10pm. The first mate went to the bow to get a few photos. The captain slept through the 7-minute show. We walked the grounds the next morning before departing enjoying the serenity with just the grounds crew and a photo at Tiki Jim’s.

We left with an apprehensive 3-mile run through the rock pile on our 45.5-mile journey to Southport, NC. This area includes cutting through granite to make the canal. Venture too far off center and you can hit a granite shelf and have big issues.

With meeting no traffic along the Rock Pile, it turned out to be a non-event. The Rockpile was part of the final man-made section of the AICW.

Southport, NC was calling and had us intrigued with Kay and Robert, friends and harbor hosts, touting their community over the years. The backdrop of many movies and tv shows, it is a quintesssential seaside town. We docked right in front of the Provision Company, a small outdoor seaside restaurant, on their courtesy docks. A prime location with the restaurant and town just steps off the dock. We took in the maritime museum, the farmers market, a provisions run, joined a club, and wandered through the quaint seaside community of 4,000. This is our 9^th state visited on our Great Loop journey. We enjoyed it so much we stayed for three nights!

Running low on produce, we headed to the famers market and in addition to our produce, scored some great banana bread that made three mornings very enjoyable. Tasha found a small watercolor of the town fishery that she would add to her collection of small art pieces that depict our visits along the route. As we shared in our facebook post, we joined an exclusive club while in Southport, the American Fish Company. This establishment has the best views in town and cold brews. The $1 fee gives us all membership perks for a year! Membership includes the not so low price of a $4.50 beer. We did not join the other club in town, The Mullet, might have to save that membership fee for the down coast trip.

The TV and film industry has used Southport for a variety of films. The list includes Safe Haven, Crimes of the Heart, Domestic Disturbance, Revenge, Dawson’s Creek, and Matlock to name a few. Our friends talked of the fireworks/fire scene in Safe Haven having taken place right across the street from their home. Fireworks were set off each night from 9p – 6a for a week to get the scenes they needed. A real way to light up the night! The Club we joined, the American Fish Company was the set of Ivan’s Fish Shack where Katie (Julianna Hough) works as a waitress.

Props from the movies and shows are located in the Visitor Center. We will also keep a lookout for a small movie made this past year called Trouble in Providence, as our friends boat C-Life was leased for it, the movie shot in Southport aboard C-Life, and Robert had a cameo appearance. It hasn’t appeared anywhere yet and Kay and Robert aren’t holding their breath waiting for it.

We were thrilled when our former next-door neighbors contacted us and said they were 15-miles away from Southport on vacation and would come see us. We hated leaving the neighborhood when we downsized to prepare for our trip, the little boys were just babies and have grown so much. Vicki and Derek had lunch with us and brought the boys back the next day to see the boat. Just might have to hire them on as crew! It was so good to see the Hastings family along our journey.

We looked forward to the nightly porch-tails at Kay and Robert’s house overlooking the yacht basin and ICW. Kay and Robert are seasoned boaters having traveled 32,000 miles, gold loopers, harbor hosts, and porch-tails extraordinaires. Every night and yes, every night they are in town, the front porch comes alive with loopers, friends, and family sharing boating, history, salt life, and life’s stories. It just might be accompanied by a drink or two, a conch blowing session, building new friendships and memories, and a lot of laughter. They share ICW knowledge, accepted packages for us, and will help loopers with anything one might need. They welcome all with open arms and share their piece of paradise graciously. We met with loopers, neighbors, and some of their family. The three nights at this port, we walked the couple blocks to the porch to join in the comradery. A wonderful experience and one we hope to partake in on the way back down.

Making the long stretch to Beaufort, with little in between, we anchored at Mile Hammock Bay (63.9 miles), a part of the Marine Corp Base, Camp LeJeune. A large anchorage, with the base all around, we heard artillery, marine corps chants, did not dare head to shore, and the captain chose not to fly the drone. There were a few larger military boats, and we watched an inflatable maneuver an observance type apparatus on another inflatable out of the bay, down the ICW, to return an hour or so later.

Tasha is getting better at relaxing while at anchor, though was a bit anxious in this large anchorage. The Now or Never was the first of nine boats to arrive this evening and got set in the middle of the large anchorage, did we mention large anchorage. The next two boats, anchored close, closer than needed with all the space. Several more boats came in and anchored in between the close boats and the Now or Never, which made them very close in this large bay! Too close for Tasha’s comfort which made for a less than sleep filled night.

After a calm night, we were on our way by 6:30 to Beaufort 44 miles further east. We called last minute for a dock, and it worked for one night only.

Unbeknownst until a couple weeks ago, we would be transiting the Beaufort area during the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament (not to be confused with the Fresh Water Blue Marlin Tournament on the Ohio River – Jeff Isler!). This is a huge tournament with large, expensive sport fish boats, claiming all the docks for two weeks in the area around Morehead City and Beaufort, NC. This is the among one of the largest and oldest sport fishing events in the county with close to 300 boats registered and a total purse of $5,700,000! Yes, you read that correctly 5 point 7 million! It also meant we needed to time our arrival and departure outside of early morning and afternoon windows when the sport fish boats would be everywhere coming in and out of the inlet kicking up huge wakes.

Our early departure from Mile Hammock Bay had us make port just after noon which gave us time to explore Beaufort. We may have beat the sport fish, but the hundreds of center consoles were everywhere.  We hadn’t seen this level of traffic since hitting the miserable mile in Fort Myers on New Year’s day. It was like the washing machine was on full agitation for several miles. Little did we know mothers natures washing machine would get us again later a couple of days later.

After 5 nights with no shore power or additional water access, it sure was nice not being on conservancy consumption or timing power consumption with the generator running to recharge the batteries. We most likely still had plenty of water, but the freshwater indicator light hasn’t been working, the Captain worked on it a few ports back, but we aren’t sure if it’s fully accurate yet and didn’t want to chance it.

We made the most of our one day in Beaufort (bow), NC not to be confused with Beaufort (bew), SC. Both charming little seaside communities rich in history. A short trek found us at the wooden boat works, the maritime museum with a large Blackbeard presence, and a bench on the waterfront watching the sport fish boats come in and the center consoles tooling around. It was absolute chaos and fun to watch since we were not on our boat.

This certainly was a million-dollar view over and over again! Boats, docks, fuel, catering, crew, entry fees of $2000 to $20,000 and the drinks being hammered once they were in port. Millions and millions and very hard to comprehend the enormity of it all. When we thought we saw one BIG sport fish, we would see another that was bigger. The ones on the rivers and the ones we grew up with on the Great Lakes were baby boats to these. Amidst all the chaos of the harbor, we spotted a wild horse on Carrot Island just a few hundred yards away.

While the menagerie of boats and activities were fun to watch, we were glad we were docked on the back side of the peninsula with a quieter atmosphere. We would not have to navigate through the hustle of boats making their way to the inlet in the morning as we were headed north.

The following day we made our way to Oriental, NC (23 miles) on the Neuse River. As we naviigated between Beaufort and the river, we were in the very small and calm Adams Creek.

The Neuse River looks more like a lake, wide and opens to the Atlantic not too far East of our destination behind the Outer Banks, but in what they call in Inner Banks. Coming into the River, the winds had picked up and the wild west was on. Stay tuned for our next post as we’ll share our docking and overnight experience with the winds in Oriental, NC.

One of the many things joys of the journey is learning the geography along the coast and exploring places we have never heard of before. At 8–9 mph we’re able to take in the sights and learn as we go, thanks to the internet. So many neat places in our country and we’re just scratching the surface. We continue to stay ignorant from the day-to-day national news and are soaking up all the good in this country. We’ve met so many good people, boaters and towns people, and are enjoying the America we love and want to remember.

Cheers!  David, Tasha,  

                  & Remy forever in our hearts!

 

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