A night sail in the ocean to Wrightsville Beach was planned. The wind was supposed to be good for the overnight trip. The idea was to leave late enough to get to the inlet in the daylight. We felt it would take about 12 hours. We walked to the store and got the part for our water pump but decided to wait on the repair until we are at the marina in Southport. We stopped for a coffee at Marmalade.
We then went to look at the Morehead City Yacht Basin where Bruce is staying. It is home to some very large motor yachts and sports fishing boats. We had a tour of Slow and Easy and then walked along the docks. We saw Anchovy in his bike basket at the gas station.
We returned to the boat to get ready for a trip offshore. The plan was to leave the dock at slack tide around 4 and make our way to the inlet. Jeff and Deb planned to get to the inlet around 440 and Bruce planned to anchor near the inlet at Fort Macon and leave around 7.
David placed our jack lines and we located tethers. We removed the sail cover and charged spotlights.
We waited for slack tide because the current was pinning us to our dock and it would be hard to get out with so much current. Also, some catamarans had come into the anchorage behind us, making it more difficult for us to back out.
After the tide change, I watched the depth finder and two feet of tide came in. Still the current was running out. The wind was also blowing with the tide. We tried to notice the tide slowing. I counted bubbles going past the piling, but decided bubbles were more affected by wind. I watched the minnows trying to swim upstream. After awhile some that were tacking made some progress. Later, some could swim straight up stream. A few boats came in to dock. They too were waiting for the slack tide. We could tell that current was still affecting them. David helped them with lines which distracted us enough such that when he finished, it was finally slack enough for us to head out.
We got out of the slip and headed around to the inlet slowly. It was almost 5 pm. Nautilus came through the bridge as we entered the inlet. We saw Bruce anchored as we passed. We reached the inlet and headed out. It did not seem too rough and the sunset was beautiful.
