State #4

Days on cruise:  25

Miles today: 54.3

Travel Time:  6 hrs 29 mins

Total Odometer:  738 miles

Coming from the west coast of the U.S., we’re accustomed to traveling from Canada to Mexico and only going through 3 states. Here on the east coast, the state lines arrive so quickly we’re taken aback!  We can’t believe that even at 50 miles a day, when we’ve traveled less than a month since the beginning of our Loop, we’ve now crossed into North Carolina, our fourth state.

Our day was uneventful. We spent much of the day in man-made cuts, plenty deep, but narrow and with few trees or birds or other things of interest.  There were several ocean inlets, and they brought us literally to the edge of the Atlantic, all heavily shoaled with sandy beaches, but this segment of the ICW was just dredged in February, so we had no problems crossing the inlets.

Toward the end of the day we entered the Cape Fear River, a huge, wide river with both swells and chop, plenty of wind, and both the swells/waves and wind were coming from the stern port quarter which made travel a little uncomfortable, as the boat swung through 30-degree adjustments on auto pilot and was even worse without auto pilot.  We tried speeding up to get through it quickly, but that only made it worse as we briefly lost steerage each time we came down the face of a wave, so we slowed back to our normal trawler speed (8 knots).

We arrived at our intended anchorage, Carolina Beach, and yet again, failed twice to set the anchor, so we left to spend the night in a State Park marina, large, mostly empty, and cheap:  $30 including water and electricity.

We had an email message from a friend telling us he thought our anchoring problem was the type of anchor we have, which is the one that came with the boat.  So, we’re beginning research on whether a different type of anchor, either the back-up we already own, or another type, might yield more reliably good results.  Opinions on what is the best anchor are endless and without objective answers, so the “no action” alternative is alive and well (in addition to being the cheapest).

Once tied up at our dock, we took a short hike through the park, which is noteworthy primarily because it’s the home of indigenous Venus Fly Traps!  It’s early, so they’re not yet in “bloom”.