Bellatrix

8 October 2015

Wrightsville Beach, NC

We did stay in Oriental a sixth day. The piers had flooded a foot over and they did turn off power for a day. Monday we tried to use the courtesy car to go to town but the roads were flooded. On Tuesday the water did recede and was just at the tops of the decking. We left Wednesday morning with bright, warm sunny skies and wisps of high clouds.

It was beautiful crossing the Neuse River and on into Adams Creek and then a canal. The currents in many places on the ICW can be significant for a slow boat. You can be making turns (rpm) for 6 knots and be moving 8 or making turns for 6 knots and moving 4. You can be running against the current, pass an inlet and all of the sudden the current is behind you and you gained 2 knots.

We traveled all day arriving in Swansboro around 1600. We walked the town and visited antique shops. A nice thing about living on a boat is that you can go shopping knowing you won’t spend any money, no place to put things. Swansboro is pretty little town proud of its past, almost all of the houses have a placard stating the date it was built and who built it. A local told us of a restaurant that was good and had live music so, after a shower, off to dinner and music.

We left Swansboro at 0800 enjoying lovely weather and scenery and arrived in Wrightsville Beach at 1700. This is mile marker 283 on the ICW, that’s from mile marker 0 in Portsmouth, VA. If you add in the 140 miles down the Chesapeake we’ve traveled 423 miles. That’s 423 miles warmer than most of our friends! Fort Lauderdale, FL is about Mile Marker 1080.

Bella is being clingy, she must have sprained her hind left leg jumping from the boat in Oriental, she is favoring it and whimpers sometimes if she lays on it wrong. We hope she is better soon.

We have heard that there had been reports of debris from the flooding, we have not seen any yet.