"2000, November 16-18 ..." a Bald Head Island Travel Page by grandmaR

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Lady Jean (shrimp boat)

November 16, 2000 Leaving Wrightsville Beach

We don't want to get to the Cape Fear River too early, and should probably not leave before 10 if we don't want a lot of adverse current. This is hard to do when we have been leaving so much earlier. We finally pull the anchor about 9, and motor slowly out the way we came in. We wonder what all those boats who have left early are going to do about the current. Probably never find out.

Today @ 10:20 we saw a whole school of dolphin - 5 or 6 gamboling about in the channel. There appeared to be a guy in a flat skiff that was feeding them. Maybe they just like little boats. They around long enough for Bob to see them too. Also saw a big belted kingfisher sitting on a day mark. Lots of pelicans and cormorants, also egrets and heron. (A daymark is an unlighted marker.)

Out there to our port is the ocean, separated by a couple layers of dunes and little sandy islets with inlets in between. On the ocean side are people with SUVs and pickup trucks who have driven out there to fish. We get to Snow's Cut about 11:15, following EPHEMERAL (whom we last saw back at Camp Lejeune).

The current is now pushing us down the cut which has high sand banks. A motor boat called OLIVER'S TWIST from BelAir passed us at 11:34, and Bob thinks that his friend Ed knows the owner, who also had a race horse by that name. We come out into the Cape Fear River. Fortunately there is little wind, and all we have to contend with is current.

On the starboard bank, we see the Sunny Point Army Ordinance Depot with their own tugs tied up alongside, and a red railroad engine running along on its own tracks. There is a New Orleans boat tied up, loaded with containers that has one of those circles with a slash across that means prohibited on the side. I can't make out what is pictured that is prohibited. On the deck they have two little tug boats.

We pass LADY JEAN, a shrimp boat who has her nets out, and flocks of birds wheeling above her.

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Ft. Fisher Ferry

Ft. Fisher Ferry

SEA YA, a boat from Emerald Isle NC passes us going south. I see ranks of yellow tanks on the upper deck. Probably a scuba boat.

None of the charts (only the AAA map) mentions that there is a ferry across this river. It goes from south of Sunny Point to the Fort Fisher Historic Site across the river (a car ferry). Unfortunately, since it isn't marked on the charts it is hard to tell where to go to get out of the way of the ferry, and for a little while, the ferry appears to be pursuing us to run us down. But eventually they turn and go across the river. EPHEMERAL is cutting the corners, and eventually goes into the ICW at Southport.

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Approaching from the Atlantic 2001

We continue down the river, aiming roughly for what is marked as an abandoned lighthouse. It turns out to be on Bald Head. They have a fake (ie non rotating light) in it at night (below).

I call the marina, and they tell me what slip to go to. I ask if we can get fuel first, so they give us directions to the fuel dock. They ask where we are and Bob says marker 5, and they say to turn in opposite marker 13 which would be behind us if we were really at #5. Bob has made a mistake with the marker number, as we were really at marker 15.

We turn in toward the entrance channel and Bob has the wheel hard over to counter the current. Suddenly he throttles back and spins the wheel. In the entrance channel there is no current.

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Passing Bald Head 2004

We come up to the fuel dock and get 30 gallons. At the fuel dock, we have been 28.1 miles at an average speed of 5.9 mph, and a total trip mileage of 405 nm. We have about 158 miles to go to Charleston.

While I am standing on the deck I hear "Rosalie Ann - where have you been?" It's Fred in his dinghy behind his boat DOLPHIN. We get tied up to the floating dock, and get the little footstool out, and lock up the boat and put everything away. Then we walk up to the office to pay. I start off ahead of Bob and stop to see Fred and Sharon.

Fred says there are thundershowers forecast for the 17th, and so he is waiting another day. I tell Bob that I want to do that too. Fred also tells me that the price is not 50 cents a foot. So I go up to see what Bob is doing and tell him to tell them that he is a Boat US member so they will give us a discount. The price doesn't drop until Nov 30th and then just to 75 cents a foot.

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Bald Head lighthouse at night

Life on Bald Head Island

We do decide to stay until Saturday. Fred feels that we can go all the way to north Myrtle Beach on Sat. where there is a place we can tie up for free. I bring the laptop in and download and upload e-mail in the real estate office until about 5:10.

Then I take a shower and wash my hair. The water is nice and hot. I remembered the shampoo and towel, but forgot a hairbrush. So I go back to the boat and brush my hair, and then we go to dinner with Fred and Sharon. There is a large noisy party there, who eventually leave to go back on the ferry.

We ask if they have any ice cream deserts, but they don't. The ice cream shop shuts at 5 in the winter. We all want ice cream, so we go to the grocery store and I get a dove bar, and the others get little 1/4 pints. We watch TV - I discover the Game Show network and we see old Match Games and old Wheel of Fortune, and old Three's Company, which I never saw the first time.

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CSY Aeolus in the marina

November 17, 2000

The wind generator, which Bob has stopped wakes me up groaning in the wind. It does that in high wind when it can't spin. It gradually gets light, and the ferries start to run. I see the palms on the opposite shore with the fronds all bunched downwind. It rains some. There are no thunderstorms that we see, but it is raining. The Weather Channel which has the Wilmington NC weather says it is only 7 mph wind. No Way. Bob leaves to go up and do the wash and take a shower. I turn on the wind instruments and it says the wind is 20-25 knots. At breakfast, we can look out and see a surf line off the island to the south. I finish writing up the 14th and 15th and go up to download and upload mail. Bob washes off the deck, and tops off our water tanks. He starts working on the SSB and gets it to work and we listen to Herb's Southbound II where he tells people what the weather will be where they are going. Some of them he tells to delay getting to somewhere so that they won't be coming in in a storm. We here some people from as far away as Venezuela. It's still rainy and overcast. We tell sea stories to each other. I go to download pocketmail, and as I am coming out of the phone booth I meet a raccoon. I also see a great blue heron sitting on the dock railing. I figure the tides on my computer. Fred says we should wait until 9 to leave, and my computer agrees. We have to do 47 miles including going through the Rock Pile (a narrow section between rock walls) and also go through a swing bridge and one of the few remaining pontoon bridges left, but we should be able to do that OK.

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Freighter and pilot boat

November 18th: (Sat) Leaving Bald Head

We waited to leave until today hoping the weather would be better with less wind. Sharon and Fred want to go to Barefoot Landing, where you can tie up for free (often rafted like at the Visitor's Center) and shop at the mall there. I'm not so sure about that, as it is a long day, and Fred is convinced that we will have too much current if we leave before 9. It is a sunny day, but there is still some wind. We get away from the dock at 8:30 in a slick maneuver - don't need anyone to help us. Back out over the lump in the marina that is right behind us - the depth alarm goes off, but we knew the lump was there because another cruiser told me about it. The wind is on the nose and about 20 knots, but the waves aren't bad. We see the Saudi container ship that we saw when we were coming down the river (with the name in Arabic on it), and then also see a ferry which comes steaming by on the port side and then gets almost to land and does an about face and comes back into the river. Why? Saw another container ship with a pilot boat that appeared to be in hot pursuit, but the pilot boat went on past the freighter. Bob saw the markers for Oak Island, and I nearly directed him in there instead of to Southport. He complained that the route that I had laid out on the computer didn't go that way just in time to go the correct direction. Fred is following us. We hit the 310 mile mark after about 4 miles from the marina at 9:15, and we are back in the ICW. We meet the ferry for Bald Head coming out of the ICW. The wind drops to 7-11 knots in the ICW, and we pull out the jib.

Next: Entering South Carolina