On Wednesday morning, 11/10/21, we left Harbour Village Marina in Hampstead, NC, at 8:45 am, since we had a shorter travel day ahead to our planned destination in Southport, NC. Our cruising weather was again spectacular with sunny skies, only a light breeze, and temperatures in the low 60s to start, forecasted to reach into the 70s that afternoon. We couldn’t ask for better than that! We headed southwest down the long, narrow NC stretch of the AICW that took us past Lea-Hutaff Island and Figure Eight Island, then on to Wilmington Beach.
Just like on our trip north earlier in our journey, we viewed miles of beautiful waterfront homes and majestic live oaks lining the western shore (mainland), while marshy, scrubby lowlands line the eastern (Atlantic Ocean) side. We soon recalled how this location is very shallow in spots, which required Steve to manually steer our boat so we could follow Bob 423’s expert tracks and not run aground. East of the marshy lowlands, we viewed the backs of the many beachfront homes that face the Atlantic Ocean. We continued our very slow-going through this area, due to the many no-wake zones surrounding the miles of private docks, piers, and pilings.
Approaching the large Masonboro Inlet that connects the AICW directly with the Atlantic Ocean, we passed underneath the Causeway Drive Bridge, which connects Wilmington proper to Wilmington Beach. This bridge has only a 14-foot clearance, so we idled in place while awaiting the bridge’s opening. As we waited, we remembered the last time we’d passed through here, going northbound, it was on a Saturday morning, when this same place was much more active and absolutely brimming with water traffic that kept the waters rough the entire way, stressing us out big time. What a difference the day of the week made, as we passed through on our southbound journey this Wednesday morning, and things were much calmer and peaceful.
Once we got past Wilmington Beach, we passed Myrtle Grove and Sea Breeze, NC, before veering west into the Cape Fear River, which we would take the rest of the way south toward Southport, NC. As we traversed the mighty Cape Fear River, we were reminded just how massively wide that river is. Because of its size, the Cape Fear River carries a major amount of commercial traffic during the week. In fact, we found ourselves in a sort of “race” with a monstrous container ship approaching us from behind on the Cape Fear River. It was, by far, the largest container ship we’d encountered on this journey, and was moving at a surprisingly fast clip, gaining on us fairly quickly! Over the radio, we heard its captain calling ahead on Channel 16 to warn all upcoming water craft in its path to clear out of the channel and give his ship a really wide berth, in preparation for the horrendous wake his ship creates. His exact words were “I’m really fat and draggin’ the bottom of the river” (which was 50 feet deep!) 😐 I felt sorry for the sailboats in front of him, as they couldn’t move too far out of the channel, as it got shallow quickly, and sailboats usually have deeper drafts. Steve pushed Legacy into a slightly faster speed, in hopes we’d be able to make our upcoming right-hand turn into the Elizabeth River toward Southport before the ship reached us, meaning we could avoid experiencing that ship’s nasty tidal wave of a wake, as it was continuing southward down the Cape Fear River and on out into the ocean. We lucked-out and reached our turn well in advance of the behemoth’s arrival. Whew!
We reached today’s destination of South Harbor Village Marina in Southport, NC, at 1:30 pm, making a starboard tie to the marina’s face wall for the night. The wall isn’t protected from water traffic, so we did some rocking during the night, but it wasn’t too horrendous.
After tying up, plugging-in, and showering, we walked over to Joseph’s Italian Bistro (located right there in our marina) for a tasty dinner and perfect wine accompaniment, bringing delicious leftovers back with us to the boat.
Position: N 33° 55.245, W 78° 03.700
Distance traveled: 43 SM
Total distance traveled: 5421 SM
Total marina nights: 404
Total nights at anchor: 23
Locks today: 0
Locks Total: 29