M/V Nearly Perfect: April 21-23, 2015

We left Southport at 7:30 Tuesday and had a beautiful day on the water. At times it was a little tense due to a lot of shoaling along the way. Fortunately the weather briefing last night prepared us for these places. We encountered many bridges along the ICW. Most were tall enough for us to get under. Others required calling the bridge tender to request an opening. We came across a bridge at Wrightsville Beach that only opened on the hour – no exceptions. Since we got there at 10:15, we had a 45 minute wait (along with several other boats) for the 11:00 opening. It was a little cool but sunny at all day. We pulled into our anchorage at Mile Hammock Bay around 3:00. This is next to Camp Lejeune Marine base and we watched helicopters fly over. We ran into Robert and Corinne (Ariel) again and they brought wine and cheese over for happy hour. Several other boats we had seen in the last few days pulled into the anchorage after us. We left Mile Hammock Bay around 6:30 Thursday morning, along with most of the other boats in the anchorage with us. We were all trying to get past the first bridge before 7:00 when it goes on an hourly opening schedule. We also needed to be past Camp Lejeune in case the Marines shut the river down for shooting practice. Shortly after leaving, we spotted a small brown bear swimming across the water. When he saw us, he did a quick turnaround and headed back to shore. The weather was nice and sunny and we had a very leisurely run through Beaufort, NC (not to be confused with Beaufort, SC) and up the Adams Creek. Once we hit the Neuse River, the wind picked up and the waters got a little choppy. We anchored around 3:30 at Gale River. We left Gale River around 6:55 Friday morning. It was pretty chilly, windy, and the waters were choppy as we crossed Pamlico Sound. Once in the Alligator River, the winds calmed and the water was pretty smooth but still chilly. We docked at Alligator River Marina at 2:30 and met two couples from Canada. We ended up having docktails, dinner and after-dinner docktails with them. It was a very pleasant evening.