Cape Fear River, and Wilmington, NC

If you click on the link below, you will see (please God) the log of our trip to Wilmington from North Myrtle Beach:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PISK35-FdxM4ngp_wPwDZ6Pi_qNeu47o

This will be a short post, because really, nothing very exciting has happened.

We had an uneventful trip from Myrtle Beach to Wilmington; conditions were cool and windy, but significantly warmer than the last few sailings we’d made. However, as soon as we turned north at Southport (see map!), we entered the mighty Cape Fear River, and as befitting our usual luck, the sun went behind clouds, and we fought the current and wind nearly the entire way to Wilmington.

Wilmington is a thriving small town on the Cape Fear River, full of Civil War and southern (cotton) history that I won’t bore you with (mainly because I don’t know anything–we missed the tour that we’d planned on going to). It was a side trip off the Loop because we had to leave the ICW and travel 14 miles up the river to get there. However, our main reason for deviating the short distance was to visit with my niece, Lauren Buchwach Williams, her husband Robert, and their 9 month old Great Dane “Jerry”. We were really glad we did. We loved Wilmington, moored at a great location (right on the “Riverwalk” leading from our marina to downtown along the River) and enjoyed good restaurants with good company. Here are a couple of pictures from our moorage:

Here is picture of Lauren and the back end of Jerry:Obviously no Robert in the picture–poor guy was working. We remember those days….

The night we arrived we took them to a fairly new restaurant in Wilmington, pleasant walking distance from the marina, that I’d found on Yelp–hundreds of reviews, all of them 5 star. Neither Lauren nor Robert had been, so I was a little nervous, but in the end, my worry was needless. And Lauren and Robert kindly let us stuff Hunny in their car while we ate so we could relax. (Imagine a great picture here)

We stayed a day longer than expected because the wind kicked up, and there were small craft advisories. They don’t call it Cape Fear for nothing, so we were happy to be snugly tied to a strong dock out of the wind and current (mostly). We were glad though, because it gave us a chance to see more of Robert (Lauren now working), and show him the boat since he’d never seen a catamaran. I guess he liked it–they might meet us in Florida for a few days this winter! Imagine a good picture of Robert here.

We are leaving this morning to go back to the ICW (about 14 miles downriver), and then continue north up the coast. Not really sure of where we’ll anchor or moor, but I’ll be sure to take more pictures along the way and at our next stop, I promised myself. And you can see our progress on the next visual log I send, hopefully.