Friday May 4, 2018 - Little River Inlet to Wrightsville Beach, NC

That's right, only two more states to go (VA and MD).  Well, I still have a lot to do in NC.    My plan was to get to Southport today.  I left a little early (dead low tide at Little River) and made fairly good time (using the genoa to squeeze every ounce possible out of the wind).  That put me in Southport 10 minutes before noon.  I had thought that I might just keep going if I got there before noon because shortly after that, the Cape Fear River would start ebbing and it has lots of bad current.  But when I rechecked, I found it wasn't scheduled to begin ebbing until 1pm.  So I kept going.  As soon as I got into the Cape Fear River, my speed went from almost 6 knots to 7.5 knots.  I averaged 7 knots over the entire 8 miles.  Then, the current through Snows Cut (just 1.5 miles) had just started flooding.  And that meant doing 7 to over 8 knots (a lttle scary).  With all this speed, I figured I'd just keep going.  It was another 10 miles to Wrightsville Beach and I averaged 7 knots over that stretch.  So, I ended up going an additional 20 miles and was anchored at 3:30pm. Overall, it was a 57 mile day. 

I plan on slowing down a little.  Beaufort is almost 70 miles north - too much for one day.  So I'll stop about half way tomorrow (in an anchorage called Miles Hammaker).  Also, there may be some bad weather tomorrow and there is supposed to be some on Sunday. 

The wind today was SSW at about 5 to 10 - until I got to about 5 miles south of Wrightsville Beach.  Then, it picked up to SSE at 20 - which is making for a very bumpy anchorage (sure reminds me of those days in the Exumas).