Day 256
On Monday morning, 05/24/21, Legacy left Harbor Village Marina at 7:00 am in yet more stellar weather and cruising conditions. The tide was up this morning, so the AICW looked ‘lake-ish’, with mirror-smooth waters. It was forecast to be another hot one that day, with high temps in the lower 90s again, which were the warmest temps we’d experienced since last summer. We cruised underneath the bridge to Surf City, NC, still moving up the west side of Topsail Beach, which is a looong beach. As we passed through Stump Sound in Everett Bay, I decided we’d finally progressed far enough north to no longer see Spanish moss in the trees along the banks.
As we crossed underneath the Highway 210/Island Drive/Goose Bay Bridge, which connects North Topsail Beach with the mainland, we headed into Alligator Bay. As with the Spanish moss, seeing wild palm trees on the banks also seemed to be a thing of the past. (Only palm trees we saw at this point were planted by man, in landscaped areas around homes and buildings.) We followed the AICW from Alligator Bay into Chadwick Bay, then on to the New River into Howard Bay. As we approached Craig’s Point, going into Sallier’s Bay, we realized the depths beneath our keel had suddenly gotten extremely skinny, which slowed us down and raised our pucker factors!
We idled in place for close to 20 minutes waiting for the Onslow Beach swing-bridge’s opening time and saw no signs of civilization; only marshy wilderness as far ahead as we could see. Once we got through the swing-bridge, we cruised north of Hurst Beach and Banks Channel, which opens directly into the Atlantic Ocean. We then cruised south of Willis Landing and Bear Creek, NC, into Hammocks Beach State Park, passing the very small community of Onwasa. Other than that community, we encountered no other signs of human life for awhile.
The wilderness and isolation ended, however, when we began to see an eclectic mix of waterfront homes. We saw everything from campers to very large, multi-story, Cape Cod style houses with their own swimming pools, where the AICW again begins to widen noticeably and become shallow. Depths averaged between 10 and 14 feet beneath our keel through this area.
We continued north of Hawkins Bay and south of Swansboro, NC, into the White Oak River where it opens into Bogue Sound, just south of Cedar Point, NC. As we passed through Swansboro and progressed closer to the Atlantic coast, we began to see honest to goodness North Carolina sand dunes rising up out of the water! We cruised south of Cape Cateret and Bogue, NC, and north of Emerald Isle, before passing underneath the Emerald Isle Causeway/NC Highway 58 bridge. There is a lot of high-dollar construction out on Emerald Isle – obviously another ‘place to be’.
We moved north of Indian Beach and Atlantic Beach, into Morehead City, NC, as we also passed north of Fort Macon State Park before making the northward turn into Beaufort, NC. Before cruising underneath the NC Highway 70 bridge, we crossed Harlowe Creek into Gallant Channel into Town Creek Marina there in Beaufort. We arrived Town Creek Marina at 2:10 pm that afternoon, for a smooth wall tie-up and power connection.
After a boat wash-down and showers for ourselves, we took a cab into historic Beaufort, NC, for a fun dinner at Moonrakers restaurant, at 5:30 that evening. Moonrakers is a nice place with a relaxing and fun atmosphere. I ordered the Chicken Bienville and Steve had the grilled Mahi special. Both were delicious! We treated ourselves to a dessert to share, and ordered “flourless dark chocolate cake”, which we discovered is basically FUDGE with scoops of ice cream on top of it. A bit different, but still CHOCOLATE, which is all that matters.
Position: N 34Ā° 43.520, W 76Ā° 39.933
Distance traveled: 66 SM
Total distance traveled: 3535 SM
Total marina nights: 233
Total nights at anchor: 22
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 27