ICW Mile 309: Cape Fear Inlet
Sunset Over Good Karma
Got up early today and motored about 25 miles down the ICW to the Cape Fear inlet. Lots of funkyness. The channel was narrow and very busy, mainly with private fast-moving fishing motorboats. The main challenge was dealing with the high currents in the channels that make it difficult to control the heading and speed. The tidal range has been about 5 feet and that equates to a lot of water moving in and out of narrow openings. You can see the effects around the channel marker posts and buoys, they appear to be in a fast moving river with a wake behind them.
We had to get moving early again today to get under a bridge at relatively low tide. After the bridge the current was hard against us so it took about two to three times as long to get to our destination, making the day about 6 hours before we docked.
Our marina is on Bald Head Island, my kind of place! It’s fairly protected for the gale force winds expected tonight and tomorrow. We are here for two nights to wait out the front coming through. Today was nice but windy but the next few days promise to be cold. The tradeoff for us is all the marinas and anchorages we have stayed in have been sparsely populated.
On a learning note: We got way too close to a dredging operation in the channel, pic below. You are supposed to remain 500 feet away because they anchor these barges on long cables. We happened to cross over at least one of those cables trying to stay in the channel and not knowing what exactly was going on. We hightailed it away when we figured out what was going on, being lucky not to have hit a cable.
Our improvised radio has been working but not ideal. We were probably warned about this operation but didn’t understand the distorted signal due to having the radio volume too high. Now fixed.
Tomorrow is a well-earned rest day. Going’ to hunt gators!
Big Dredging Operation in the Channel
Posted in Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.