Fear and Freighters

 4/19- Myrtle Beach (Lighthouse Keeper Marina) to Carolina Beach

   Cape Fear earned its reputation today if only that I have been scared of it for days. I’ll get back to that in a minute. Today we had the whole range of weather. First thing this morning it was bright and sunny. The wind was calm and the water just reflected the sky. We waited an hour or so in order to get to Cape Fear after the tide change. By the time we left the wind had piped up and fog had rolled in. It was not Maine fog though and with at least a half mile of visibility we took off. 

    If you remember the last time we left Lighthouse Keeper Marina we had our share of problems. This time however we had the crew from R dock come down and help us. It went much like we knew what we were doing and we got away without crashing into anything. 

    The fog eventually cleared and it became a nice sunny day. Unfortunately the wind stayed up and was right on the nose. It was ok though as we had to wait until around 3pm for the tide to change in the river. 

   Going by Southport the current was against us and it dragged on with me getting nervous about what conditions we would find in the river. Just as we pulled into the river the sun got blotted out and I thought it was another eclipse. Turns out it was a huge freighter loaded to the rafters with shipping containers. We basically just pulled behind a buoy and hid until he was past. As the wind was blowing down the river I snuck in behind him and did some drafting. 

   With the wind blowing down the river and the current sweeping us northward it made the mouth of the river a little rough but nothing we hadn’t seen before. It then settled down and we flew ahead. The rip currents at various places made for some exciting steering. And now of course it was clouding up fast and threatening to rain. 

   We got into Carolina Beach and tied up to a mooring just as the rain started. It didn’t last long but it meant the weather had hit for the cycle.

   We had stopped here on the way down and spent 3 days here pretty much like we will do now. If today was any kind of preview as to what the traffic will look like tomorrow I’m not going anywhere.  There was a crazy amount of boat traffic buzzing by us all day. Thank you I’ll wait until Monday when most of the yahoo’s are at work. Plus the weather will disintegrate as the weekend progresses. It will be good to get a couple of days off. 

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