Anchors Away Marina, Hampstead, NC

We finally made it to the dock last night about 7:50 PM, over 4 hours after we turned into the 200 yard channel into the boatyard.   We spent a quiet night tied alongside the cement pier.  We spent the morning picking up a rental car, getting the boat ready to be hauled, backstays removed, motor off the dinghy, dinghy on the bow, etc.  Then we waited.  We were finally hauled and blocked about 4:15 PM.  While we were moving the boat into the Travelift slip we heard one of the boats we had hung out with in Key Largo calling a marina about 8 miles away.  We were too busy to hail them at the time, and when we tried later we weren't successful reaching them.  After having cocktails in the cockpit up in the air, we decided to take a drive and ventured over to the marina in Surf City where we thought we might find Freedom's Turn.  Sure enough there they were!  Linda and Charlie Thomas are from Michigan and are doing the big loop.  They were in Key Largo for a month when we were there and were part of "the crowd".  It was fun to catch up with them and we took advantage of their access to their marina's showers as there are no facilities here at Anchors Away Boatyard!  So we are back aboard, all clean and ready for bed.
___ _/) ___(Brunelle on the hard) D&M

Brunelle's new home for the time being.

HMMM, is this where the rudder should be?

NOT a pretty picture!

Indigo Plantation to Anchors Away Marina

NOT the best day of this adventure!  We left early to catch the ingoing tide on the Cape Fear River and rode it easily up to the cut across to the Intracoastal along the barrier islands.  We waited at the Wrightsville Beach bridge for the 11 o'clock opening along with several boats. Once through the bridge we slid over to the side of the channel to let a few powerboats go by and ran aground.  No big deal we thought, we were barely off the channel, Dan tried to work us off to no avail so we called TowboatUS.  They had heard us alerting the boats behind us that we were aground (so they wouldn't run up our tail) and had been calling us every few minutes anyway.   TowboatUS arrived in about 10 minutes and it took a lot of pulling to get us off, but he did.  He told us to idle on up the river while he prepared the paperwork.  We were trying to head on up the channel (against the outgoing tide) without much success when we heard a shout from astern.  Martha turned and noticed a large blue "thing" floating back there and quickly realized it was our rudder! - - -no wonder we were unable to turn up stream!  The runabout that had shouted retrieved the rudder - not an easy task and delivered it to TowboatUS while we scrambled to drop the hook to keep us from drifting back toward the bridge!  TowboatUS came alongside and we raised the anchor and at first attempted to be towed by him. BIG MISTAKE!  We "sailed" back and forth across the channel like a madman.  We settled on getting a "hip" tow for the 12 miles up the ditch toward Anchors Away Marina which has a Travelift.  We arrived at the entrance to AA's channel around 3:30, just a few minutes before low tide and promptly ran aground in the middle of their channel!  It is now 7:15 and the tide still isn't high enough to get us off.  We're getting to know Tom from TowboatUS pretty well!
~~~_/)~~~D&M
Google Earth track file

What a day! #1 We start thru the Wrightsville Beach Bridge with two Chesapeake boats, one from Wittman and one from Solomons. #2 We are followed by several other boats including Alan Jackson's Neon Rainbow. Background: a sandbar waiting to be born (near the scene of the "Crime".) #3 We moved over to let Neon Rainbow by and ran aground. #4 Our RUDDER sitting aboard TowboatUS. #5 Here we are aground again! (for three plus hours waiting for the tide to rise enough to let us in the channel to Anchors Away Marina.