Monday 10/30/2017 Carolina Beach State Park Marina to Southport NC

We were up at 5:30 and Phil got a cab to the nearby bus station at around 7am.  It is a bright sunny day but chilly (and still breezy) as foretasted.  Phil caught a cab at 7 to get to the Food Lion Bus stop 2 miles away.  We tried Uber but there were no Uber drivers in the area.  The cab was a backup. His plan was to take a Wave bus to Wilmington and an Amtrak Shuttle to the Amtrak station.  It's now Tuesday morning and he should be getting home about now since he was going to have to spend the night in the Philly train station, waiting for a 5am this morning train to Harrisburg.

So, I had timed my departure from Carolina Beach SP Marina for 10am - to coincide with an ebbing current down the Cape Fear river and a slack current at the entrance to Southport.  Unfortunately, the wind was still blowing from the west at 15.  But once I started preparing the dock lines for my departure, it was hard to reverse my progress (and stay another night).  That's probably what I should have done since I liked the marina and the rates were very reasonable. 

Getting out of the slip was a little tricky since I was solo and the wind was from abeam.  But I managed with only slightly touching the rub rail against the port piling on my way out.  However, once I was clear, I looked out the narrow entrance into the River and noticed a large barge coming up the channel into Snows Cut.  I had no choice but to wait for him to pass.  I had a little trouble standing off all the docks but finally managed to exit the marina basin after about 10 minutes.  I knew the tide was low but I didn't know it was unusually low (due to recent west winds).  Just after I got into the channel that leads into and out of the marina, I mistakenly turned to the main channel too soon and ran aground.  Arrrrg!!  I guess because of the wind and waves, I was able to back off and get back into the marina channel.  But just after a sigh of relief, as I was exiting the channel, I bumped on the bottom again.  This time, I just kept going.  I was lucky to be exiting at a time when a 45' ketch was just coming by out of Snows Cut so I followed him down the channel and into the Cape Fear River.  It was a real relief after my bumpy start. 

The current in the river was about 1.5 knots and the wind was from the WNW so my leader and I both set our jibs and sailed down the river at about 5 to 6 knots.  I arrived at Southport about 12:15.  The sailboat in front of me stayed to the east, headed offshore out the Cape Fear Inlet.  I started into the ICW on the right.  My plan was to check out the two basins in Southport.  The first is very small.  It has a few restaurants but no marinas.  There is a free city dock but it is still in major disrepair from Hurricane Mathew over a year ago. But the basin was empty and looked like a great place to anchor for the night - so I went in and grabbed the center spot.  It is a busy place with lots of commercial fisherman coming and going all afternoon.  Still, it was relaxing and I got caught up on a few things.  The temperature in the boat got up to 70 but overnight, it got down to just over 50.