May 29, 2021
Winded
The cruising gods were with me in the morning. The Wrightsville Beach bridge only opens on the hour but, if I had read it carefully, was on demand before 7:00 a.m. Fortunately, I hit the bridge at 6:30 and went right through. I arrived at the next bridge a couple of minutes before it opened and didn’t even have to stop to go through. I found out another bridge that required an opening had been replace with a spanky new high bridge. How great is that. I knew my luck couldn’t last. The reason for going inside were the high winds and big waves. Well, I didn’t have the big waves but as soon as I hit Bogue Sound the wind was howling. OK, by Falcon standards it was a calm day with only 40kn gusts (46 mph). Terrapin is very tall and those winds pushed me all over. It was extra challenging with the wind predominately on the beam so I got the full effect. The last two hours were exhausting with constantly steering the boat and keeping it in deep water so I don’t run aground. I was extremely relieved to get into the somewhat protected area at Morehead City. I did take a little time to go up the channel to look at Beaufort and an anchorage I spotted. Being Memorial Day weekend, the little anchorage I looked at had boats anchored four deep all the way into the marked channel. What a zoo. The Beaufort waterfront looked pretty cool and definitely want to come back and spend time – not on a holiday weekend.
I did talk on the radio to one of the previous owners of Terrapin, Mason Williams. He and his wife probably had Terrapin the longest and were the ones that painted her hull green. He had seen me in the harbor and hailed me. Luckily, I was far enough away so he couldn’t see her bruises from the journey. I really wish I had been able to get into a marina here so we could meet and talk in person. We will try to do that at a later time and am looking forward to it.
