Spooner Bay

Another hard day on the ICW

We get up at 7:00 AM and I notice we are the only boat left. We leave at 8:00 to catch the next bridge opening going north. Nice sunny day, a little cool and as with the last couple days, the current is against us most of the time. For about 5 minutes past Swansboro we are zipping along at 8 knots, but that quickly ends as we head up another leg of the ICW. Some times you can catch the tide change and inlet changes at the right tide change and have favorable currents all day long on the ICW. Sometimes you have just the opposite. We are now paying back for all the past good luck with favorable currents.

Waterfront still for sale at Swansboro

We had hoped to go outside at Wrightsville beach and sail directly to Cape Lookout just east of Beaufort NC, but the northeast winds would have been on the nose, so we stayed in the ICW. 

We get to Spooner Bay around 2:00PM, another favorite anchorage of ours. There is a marina there, but also room to anchor in a very protected little cove. We fuel up and decide to stay at the marina this time. The other thing we like about this place is we can walk to a whole bunch of stores, West Marine, Walmart, Lowes, Staples, Best Buy, etc. I buy a new boat TV antenna. Our old one, on the top of our mast, has not been working as well as it once had. We also stop at Lowes so I can replace some of the many solar garden lights that have managed to go over board in the Bahamas. I think I have lost three of them. We have dinner back on the boat, because I'm too tired from shopping to make another stop.