Wrightsville Beach to South Harbor Village Marina

Day 35, Tuesday, November 1, 2016

You can monitor my trip at the link: Second Winds Progress Live

Large two story house on stilts

I started this day with a vigorous 1 mile walk to in an attempt to locate an internet hotspot and also a place to get a store bought breakfast.  I was unsuccessful in the WiFi search but did find the great hometown style Causeway Café.  It is obviously a hangout for the locals.  I ask the receptionist if they had internet service and she politely said “No.”  They also don’t take checks or credit cards. 

I asked the waitress about size of their advertised “Giant” pancake and she said that they were the size of the plate.  I also asked for a side of sausage and she

The Coast Guard is always present. Usually in small high seed inflatables

responded with how many.  I said two assuming that they the small little links that one typically gets in a restaurant.  She accurately described the pancake but the sausage turned out to be the size of a hotdog.  They appeared to be made from fresh casings and then cut to length before they were cooked because they had a slightly overcooked portion of the stuffed meat exuding out of each end.  They were really good. 

A shrimper heading in

Back at the boat, I loaded up an empty 6 gallon fuel can and headed for a marina about a mile away.  It was a pleasant ride and as I left the side of Second Wind I was passed by a trio of dolphins out hunting for their breakfast.  It is always fun to see these guys “playing” in the water.

I headed out into the ICW in relatively calm waters with a light following breeze.  Our journey today is scheduled to be fairly short but interesting.  We are heading for the Cape Fear River.  It obviously runs into the Cape Fear region of the Atlantic coastline that has been a challenge ocean voyages for years. We left the portion of the Waterway that paralleled the barrier islands and took a ¾ mile passage through Snows Cut that

Hanging out

took us to Cape Fear River.  The water all morning had been flowing fast but in the cut, the current was probably running 4 knots into my nose.  It was an exciting ride as the boat speed dropped down below 3 knots. 

Once out in the River, the tide was flowing out and so as we traveled downstream, my boat was maintaining a speed over ground of 8 knots.  I began taking pictures of the chartplotter as the speed continued to increase.  The highest I saw and photographed was 9.3 knots. Since I was in the middle of a huge river, I didn’t have the sensation of traveling fast but as I passed a channel buoy, I was amazed

Smoken!

to see a wake flowing out the downstream side.

At the town of Southport near the entrance to the point where the Cape Fear River flows into the ocean, the ICW turns west. There was an actual current line where between the waters of the river that parallels the barrier islands and the Cape Fear River.  Once in the ICW, the current was again in my face but it was flowing as a much slower pace that I had previously experienced.  Our destination marina, South Harbor Village Marina, is located about a mile away from the Cape Fear.  Again I had an opportunity to wait about an hour as they sifted the glut of boats into their moorings. 

Sam and Phil had arrived somewhat earlier and suggested that we dine at the local restaurant.  That sounded good to me so we met at 6:00 in the Dead End Saloon where I enjoyed a crab cake.  As I was leaving the restaurant, I realized that there was a washing machine available in the laundry room so I hurried back to the boat collected my dirty duds and headed back.  The dryer finally shut down at about 9:00 but my clothes were not dry.  I was ready for bed so I bagged them up and headed for the boat.