Adams Creek is a beautiful anchorage but we saw a lot of crab pots in a pattern that made anchoring difficult. We anchored out very close to the ICW channel.

9:33 -> 12:10 (2hr. 39 min)

We timed our departure to pass under the Atlantic Beach Bridge near low tide. This meant passing under the higher Emerald Bridge before Low. Passed under Emerald at 9:05 am 2 hrs 20 minutes before low. Gauge Road 64 ½ feet. VHF was doubled over. Guage is accurate. We started out against the current but within 40 minutes the current turned and we made good time arriving way early for the Atlantic Beach bridge so we had to creep in the last couple of miles arriving at 11:33, 40 minutes before low. Gauge read 65′ cleared easy. Passed under Moorehead City Bridge at noon 22 minutes after low. Cleared easy.

Passed under Surf City Bridge at 9:51 AM gauge read 67 feet. Passed under topsail bridge at 11 AM gauge read just under 65 feet — we cleared. Swansboro anchorage is just 1 mile north of Swansboro Village. This is a very narrow creek with only room for one boat (Maybe two if one went further in down the creek) it was only 8 feet deep with about 2 feet tide and we swung with the current with about 65 feet of chain out. We held tight through a three hour thunderstorm torrential rains and 25 kts steady with gusts up to 33 kts anchoring center channel no reef marked by for buoys.

Use Orton Point tide table to time passage under Carolina beach / Snow’s cut Bridge pass through going against High door at slack. Currents can be strong. We passed under a bit thought VHF antenna hit but gauge read 67 ft. The bridge appears higher on the southbound side? We stopped at Sloop Creek Anchorage, just 2.5 Mi south of Surf City Bridge.

Bird Island Anchorage, just inside the inlet. Anchorage right off the beach on Bird Island. This was a popular Beach on the weekend with small boats pulling into the beach or anchor just off the beach. Yesterday gave us time to relax, regroup after the rough offshore passage. I needed time to plan the icw leg from there to Cape Fear. Sunday: just after passing through Lockwood Follies the starboard side steering came loose with no control of the rudder. Luckily the port side work. We decided to stop early in the Cape Fear River as it it started raining and visibility from inside was limited. I also wanted to try and fix the steering. In the evening we were visited by the security team quote Bravo One and quote from the nearby Sunny Point army base ocean terminal. They were friendly and said to radio them if we needed anything. I believe they were checking us out. That’s their job.

We reluctantly left this morning knowing the seas were forecast at three feet but we were hoping for a good Southeast Breeze Breeze to help move us along and balance the boat. The seas weren’t that bad in the a.m. and we were making good time 9 plus knots with the current. However the southeast winds were very light with no help from the sails. By noon the seas were building and right on our beam and the wind shifted to the Northeast right on our nose at 17 knots. Very uncomfortable and our dinghy straps loosened threatening to dump the dinghy overboard. We changed course and headed toward the Little River Inlet 11 nautical miles away. Our original course was for the Cape Fear entrance 30 nautical miles away.

Shortly after we arrived at Buckhead Creek we closed. Below and ran air conditioning (with generator) we noticed several large 1.25 inch Hornets likely European Hornets, attacking the back deck window and door. They seemed very agitated by us. They slowly left shortly after turning off the generator.