Cruising with La Dolce Vita: Wrightsville Beach, NC

We left Swan Point Marina at 7:45 am, with extreme difficulty because of the wind and current. Like docking yesterday afternoon, we needed 3 dock hands to help us get turned around and out of the small marina. I don't recommend staying there when the wind is over 5 kts.

We arrived at Wrightsville Beach, NC a little after 2:00 pm. 37 miles that felt like 70. Today's run was very difficult because the depth of the channel did not agree with our depth finder, or with the charts. And again we ran into a shoal and had to be pulled off. Along with another sailboat who grounded 20' away from us on the other side of the channel as she was passing us. The channel in this portion was only about 18' across, and the markers were missing. This is getting old.

On top of the constant worry about grounding, we had to contend with three bridges, two that opened only on the hour and one on the hour and half hour. Timing was important. We almost missed the last one just before Wrightsville Beach....if we had missed it we would have had to wait an hour to get to our destination just on the other side of the bridge. We were motoring at 8 kts and keeping an eye on the depth as we barreled toward the bridge. Whew! We arrived totally exhausted.

I did take a few photos today, when things weren't so stressful: