Sneeds Ferry, NC

Saturday, November 4, 2006

034-32.520 N
077-21.660 W

Ahoy from Sneads Ferry, NC!

This isn't quite "Deliverance" territory, but it's close! We're 45 miles from Moorehead City where we spent last night and 30 miles from Wrightsville Beach.

Today was a bit frustrating. All of the marinas in Wrightsville Beach were full and there aren't a lot of marinas between Moorehead City and Wrightsville. We were able to book a slip at the New River Marina in Sneads Ferry, but we had to arrive after 4:30 as we were going to be on the fuel dock. We had a nice relaxing morning and departed from the marina at around 9:30. We had the current with us, which normally would be a good thing, but in this case it felt like a bad thing as we had the motor just idling and it felt like we were crawling. In reality we were moving quickly, but we're used to pushing all of the time, and it grated on our nerves to be going so slow.

Today's journey was quite beautiful. For the first half of the trip we were running by beautiful houses on the ICW. There were many stunning properties. Since the marina in Moorehead City didn't have Internet, I decided to check to see if I could tap into some unsecured wireless signals as we floated by. No problem! I tapped into probably a dozen routers and managed to pull down my e-mail. Thanks to all of the routers that I borrowed! We entered Camp Lejeune, which is a training base for the Marines, and it became rather remote. However, it was beautiful with large expanses of marsh. At this time of the year, the marsh grasses are a beautiful shade of golden yellow and they were spectacular with the warm light from the setting sun and the cool light of a full moon rising behind them. As we reached our destination the sky was filled with hundreds of different kinds of birds while pods of dolphins fed on fish in the ICW.

We arrived at the marina at about 4:20 and had to circle for 10 minutes while some boats finished fueling. We pulled on to the fuel dock and got tied up. The cruising guide stated that there was power, so Sue asked where we hooked in. The guy who helped with our lines said that there wasn't and power and Sue asked "You're kidding, aren't you?" Well, he wasn't. It seems that as a result of several hurricanes that all of the power boxes near the dock don't work any more. He pointed out an outlet quite a distance away and luckily had I had the 200' of extension cords (and conversion plugs) necessary to connect to it. This is good because tonight it's supposed to the the coldest night yet with temps in the 20s in the surrounding areas.

We wandered around the area to stretch our legs. It's quite interesting as most of the houses are either trailers or pre-fabs, but there are also nice brick and frame houses intermixed. While it's interesting, I wouldn't want to live here.

Tomorrow we're headed to Cape Fear and we're going to need the currents with us as we've got about 65 miles and there are quite a few bridges in between.

Geoff & Sue

For the cruiser:

The New River Marina clearly is THE place to get fuel in this area. We paid $2.30 for diesel in Moorehead, but here it's $1.91. There's only room for 2 boats at the fuel dock and there's almost no power available. We paid $1/ft, which seems expensive for what you get.

Log ID: 910