Jacksonville, Fl - Offshore - Southport, NC - Beaufort, NC - Oriental, NC

This is a long post with lots of photos - Saturday thru Wednesday for the trip.

It's a long slog down the river from Jacksonville to the ocean. But it was enjoyable.  About 6 hours to the inlet.  Approaching downtown.

 

The only bridge we had to request opening - main street in Jacksonville.

 

Lots of neat large vessels along the way.

 

Cool artwork on what I assume are grain elevators or something like that.

Cathy told us to use any food on board - so Kris kept us fed nicely!  Some of the best choc chip cookies I've had.  (And I've sampled alot of chocolate chip cookies...)

 

As we were getting close to the inlet the cruise ship we passed earlier was bearing down on us.  They gave a nice "2 horn blast" to indicate they'd be passing us on our port side.

 

Lots of passengers were on the decks and seemed to enjoy waving at us.

 

There weren't any photos of the next day or so.  A pretty large thunderstorm caught us as we departed offshore and the seas were not kind.  Nothing much happening except constant motion of the boat - off and on good winds but the seas remained confused and uncomfortable.   The forecast was not very accurate - Cathy kept us updated using the InReach but there was little we could do but press on.

The next day things lightened up a bit.

 

 

We saw a few freighters.

 

Approaching Southport a colorful dredge boat.

Kris and Dean relaxing - they really are happy people, I promise!

Dean whipped up some fabulous pizzas as usual.

 

And before we knew it, approaching Southport.  With Cathy's help concerning weather, we decided to come inland to avoid some unfavorable wind/waves.

 

Huge cargo ship going into Wilmington.

We anchored at Wrightsville Beach near the Mansboro inlet for an early departure the next morning.

On the 12 hours heading towards Beaufort offshore again we were treated to some US Coast Guard activity.  

The search plane was doing a grid pattern - not sure if it was an actual search or training, but they overflew us numerous times.

We made it almost back to Oriental with the main sail up traveling Adams Creek at 8+ knots but decided to anchor off the creek and sail the final couple of hours the next day.

Uneventful back to the dock - Kris at the helm to drop off Dean on our dock.

 

Dean crawled out on the bow of What If to jump off on the dock - he needed to move Charm up in the slip at bit before we docked What If.

 

Kris did a great job easing up to the dock so that Dean could jump off.

Everything all settled for the day.  We'll take What If over to River Dunes tomorrow and fill up with fuel and put her in the slip for the summer.  

The three Mantas look cozy together.  It was a fun 4 days - and neat to have spent it with Kris and Dean, great folks.  Hope to see Cathy and Ed at the dock sometime in late June.