Wrightsville - Saturday January 20, 2024

 Today was cold and so we stayed onboard and I got to sew and work on my new quilt top.

I finished all thirty squares so now I can assemble when I get enough space to lay it out.

Time in Wrightsville NC Friday January 19, 2024

 

We had a day of decision making. We contacted Blair and asked for the people's name who want to lease a water lot at Sea Harbour Yacht Club in Oriental. The couple are in Utah as the husband teaches skiing and so they hauled their boat out in November. Blair offered to come by and check out the alternator and bushing problem but we can do that when we get back to Oriental. 

We took a walk up to the beach which is about a mile away. We found a church we can go to on Sunday. The children's play ground had this cool play structure. The sourvenir shop is still here that we went to in 2008. I made porkchops and fried eggs for supper.

Layover Day in Carolina Beach

 Relaxing at breakfast Dick opened the new tablet and the device was locked. We dinghyed into the anchorage to find a place to get wifi and google the problem. I also texted Nick to see if he could google it and text me back. We went to get a coffee at a MacDonald's and my phone would not let me connect to MacDonald wifi. Fortunately Nick got back to us and said hold the volume and start button at the same time. 

Our alternator is not charging the batteries so Dick tightened the belt not sure that fixed it. Our concern today is the temperature drops to the negatives for overnight. Our heater needs electrical at the start up.

We have decided to go back to Wrightsville Beach in the morning and get hooked up to electrical at a dock for the next four days of negative temperatures overnight. 

We went to the beach on our way back from downtown. 

Camp LeJeune to Carolina Beach Tuesday January 16, 2024

 We woke up at 6:00 am and decided to wait until 7:00 am to take off. We were nervous about travelling through this area by the New River. This is where we hit a dredge pipe last year. We had purchased a new tablet and Aqua Maps software and were having some issues getting it to work. To even cause more drama we were navigating with our chart plotter and maps, when a dense fog set in. We inched our way from one buoy to the other. When we went by a marker we were totally blind until we saw the next one loom up.

Talk about overcoming our fears and getting back on the horse.!!! Thankfully we made it safely and missed the detour of the New River. We decided to go to Carolina Beach and take a mooring ball.

Carolina Beach has been taken over by developers. All the marinas have been bought up and the only place to stay with no services is on a mooring balls run by the municipality. There were two dinghy docks to go ashore. We opted to go to the first one and walk down town. Tomorrow will be a layover day.  The new software provided current information and we got some local knowledge about the centre of town.

We had to pay online for the dock so we went ashore and found a variety store/restaurant/ bar and the staff was happy to give us wifi.  (North Blend Cafe).

Oriental to Camp LeJeune Monday January 15, 2024

 We  woke up at 6:00 am both Dick and I had a restless sleep, we ate breakfast and headed out in our winter coats by 7:00 am. Fortunately we had a sunny day and my favourite part of the trip was the Bogue Sound where the inlets create small sand islands. On the other side of the river is lavish waterfront property homes. When you go by the inlets the current can reverse so you either have a following current or an opposing current. We made it to Swansboro by 2:00 pm so we decided to go another 15miles and make it to Mile Hammock Bay at Camp Le Jeune military base. There are two bridges we had to time and the wait was about 20 minutes. When we got to the anchorage the there was five other boats. This was a significant place because last  year we got into trouble at the New River and we were sent to the anchorage by Boat Tow US. 

I made hotdogs for lunch maybe to make it feel more like summer.

The new furnace was wonderful to have we were nice and toasty warm.

Last day in Oriental

 Our last day in Oriental was an opportunity to visit Oriental Baptist one more time and enjoy the worship and fellowship. True to his southern hospitality Fleming invited us to lunch and darts following the service. We took time to drop in before a trip to Walmart to provision for the trip. We set the alarm for 7:00 am and hope to get away as soon as it is daylight. We have a high tide until 12:00 pm. The high temps will be in the 60 ies.

Preparations at SailCraft in Oriental 2024

 We arrive January 4, 2024 at Triton Yachts and set the ladder and electrial cord and moved aboard our home away from home Moonstruck. It was great to be back and Dick had brought a diesel heater to install. It took three days, multiple trips to the hardware and a few trips to New Bern to purchase two new batteries K22 which are suppose to be four times more powerful.

We got up for breakfast and took a few minutes and looked back on the trip from 2008 and it is amazing what you forget and so I have decided to keep the blog active even if it is just for our reference. The temperatures are suppose to be -6 degree C. for two nights this week.