April 18, 2019 Myrtle Beach to Southport

After two long  days of pushing ourselves  we had an easy short day  today.  Left Myrtle Beach Yacht Club at 8:30  after a leisurely breakfast just  as the tide was starting to go down.  This section of the ICW has a number of inlets around  barrier islands.  They’re not always navagible but still  draw water in and out so as you’re traveling you’re constantly either getting  pushed or pulled by current.  At times we were fighting the current and got down to 4.5 knots.  Other times we were getting a  push and idling along at 8.5 knots.  First item of the day was crossing Little River Inlet and entering NC.  This is pretty familiar grounds to me as I kept a boat at Little River for several years when we lived in Florence SC years ago.  Lots of good fishing nearby – trolling, bottom fishing, inshore… it was where I first got interested in saltwater fishing.

The first island after Little River Inlet is Sunset Beach, NC.  That’s the hailing port on our transom..  Since As You Wish is a federally document vessel we were allowed to pick any city as our hailing port.  Martha and I took our first vacation together at Sunset Beach, so it seemed fitting as we embarked on this year long vacation plus the name just brings a smile to your face.  It also has a lot of pleasant memories for me since it and Ocean Isle Beach is where we took family vacations each summer after moving from NY when I was in my early teens.  The old single lane pontoon bridge that was so iconic to the island is now gone.  Replaced by a much more efficient high rise bridge but the landing is still there and is apparently a decent fishing spot. 

The NEW Sunset Beach bridge

Fishing at the old Pontoon Bridge landing

Ocean Isle Beach was always a bit more commercialized than Sunset Beach back in the day and it seems to have continued on that path.  Based on the houses that island now looks like the lifestyles of the rich and famous rather than the humble summer bungalows of old.

Ocean Isle canals with floating docks

Houses on Ocean Isle 

Next, we passed Holden Beach which showed there’s still a thriving shrimping and fishing industry in these parts.  And finally, Long Beach and Oak Island.  Before hitting  the Cape Fear River we took a sharp left turn into Southport Marina and had the boat docked in slip C23 by 1:30. Bow in today instead of stern in just to mix it up.   Martha did all the driving today except for getting us off the dock at MBYC and putting in at Southport.   That was a long 5-hour stint at the helm without a break!!

Shrimpers lined up at Holden Beach

Flocks of Pelicans and several porpoises seen today

We’ll be in this safe harbor for the next few days.  Heavy rain all day tomorrow and gale force winds for two days.  Our anniversary dinner was overdue so we had a nice meal at Mr. P’s Bistro (surf and turf for me, Filet medallions with scallops and crab for Martha) then took a much needed stroll around Southport which is a charming and historic town.  Looks like we’ll be boat bound tomorrow due to the rain working on inside projects, but we plan on doing some more touring on Sat.  and then finally start traveling again on Sunday.  There are several other looper boats we crossed paths with on the water today that are holed up here so I’m sure docktails will be in order at some point.

Cloud cover starting to overtake the light of the full moon.

Journey  of 4-18-2019