We set the alarm for 0600 so that it would be calm and there would be a high enough tide for us to get off the dock. That proved to be a good decision for another reason as I will explain later. It was an absolutely beautiful morning, calm, cool and clear.
There is a section of the IWW that passes through Camp Le Jeune Marine Base. They are currently conducting live fire artillery practice from ships in the Atlantic to a range on the base. Off and on for the last few days the military has closed the IWW to all boat traffic from 0800 to 1200 and from1300 to 1700. We made it to the start of the zone 20 minutes before the closure at 0800. They let us enter the zone but they stopped a smaller sailboat that was right behind us. The Navy boat told us that they had gotten clearance to let us through but we should proceed as fast as we can. Within 15 minutes after we cleared the zone they commenced firing. You could clearly hear the rumble of the guns. If they hadn’t let us through, we would have had anchor and wait four hours.
We had a little trouble figuring out the channel markers at Beaufort Inlet near Moorehead City, NC. The scale of things was just much larger than we had become accustomed. We finally took the easy way and followed another boat.
We planned to anchor in Taylor Creek which flows past Beaufort North Carolinas’s waterfront. When we arrived about 1230, there were already 25 to 30 boats anchored or moored in the relatively narrow creek that is also used by commercial fishing boats. Two anchors are necessary (Bahamian Style) because of the strong currents that change direction with each tide change and the fact that the channel is so narrow.
We tried to anchor three times in different places but each time something wasn’t right. About 1330 we finally we got them set in a place that seemed to work but we are about a mile from the waterfront. We decided not to go to town but just eat lunch and take a nap.
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