26 March 2020
We were fairly prompt in getting underway today at 0705 from
Wrightsville Beach and moored here at the Light Keeper Marina in Little River,
SC. Yes, our third state. To orient the geographically challenged,
there are three great capes in the Carolinas, Hatteras, Lookout and Fear, all
of while we have passed closely but inland in the AICW. We were near Cape Lookout when we were in
Beaufort, NC, and today we passed near Cape Fear as we traversed the lower part
of the Cape Fear River dodging a large pair of tankers transiting in and out of
the port of Wilmington, NC. The
incidence of near catastrophes today was limited to a couple places where the
bottom tried to rise up and touch us, mostly in sharp turns and inlets from the
sea where silting tends to happen.
Phoning ahead after searching the Active Captain data displayed on the
charts of my laptop, we were lucky to obtain the last transient reservation
this marina will take until the corona virus crisis is over. Once here, we were directed tie port side to the
tee-head of a pier which already had a large sailboat occupying half of it. Trying to pull in ahead of the sailboat and
just slide in bow first with a spring line did not work out too well, and when
scratching the hull paint on the end of the pier became a threat, I ended up
having the dockhand toss the line back to Mary while I cleared the pier. With just a little bit of breeze from astern
and no current, I was able to get lined up the back in at an angle so Mary
could toss the stern line to the dockhand which would allow me to just push the
bow into the pier with the bow thruster like a closing door. While performing this maneuver, the bow
thruster began making a horrible clattering noise when trying the thrust to
starboard; thrusting port was OK. So I
used the engine in short periods of ahead clutch with right full rudder to push
the bow to starboard and the stern to port, toward the pier while using half of
the thruster’s capability to push the bow to port once the stern line was
cleated on the pier. We have a
reservation for tomorrow night at the Georgetown Landing Marina in Georgetown,
SC some sixty miles down the track.
After that, we do not know for sure if any marinas will still welcome
transients meaning we will possibly be anchoring out every night. Since anchorages tend to be more plentiful
south of here, maybe we will not have such a hard time finding a place to spend
the night.
