The Adventures of Monk's Vineyard - The Great Loop and Beyond: May 15 Day 324

We were up fairly early this morning and pulled anchor around 7:15. That allowed us to make the Onslow Beach Swing Bridge at 8:00. We traveled through about 5 miles of restricted/prohibited area used by Camp Lejeune as a firing range. They were not conducting exercises this morning, so we got though the area without having to stop.

Our trip today was pretty straight forward – literally. If you looked at the charts of the ICW from where we started today at the Camp Lejeune area to where we entered the Neuse River you would see that about 75% of it was a straight line. Except for having to adjust occasionally for other boat traffic, we could have almost run on unattended auto pilot except in the areas of Morehead City and Beaufort.

Initially we were going to stop in Morehead City, but when we arrived it was just a little past noon. The weather was beautiful so we decided to press on to Oriental. Once we were in Oriental it seemed to really register that we were almost home. We have been to Oriental many times for weekend trips and we own a condo up the Neuse River in New Bern.

We anchored in Greens Creek just west of the harbor. There was an anchorage right in the harbor, but it already had several boats in it and the water depth was shallow in many spots. Because we fit under the bridge (sailboats could not) we decided to go a short way up the creek and anchor there. It was quite shallow in the creek too, but we finally found a place to drop the hook. However, after settling in, we decided we had drifted into the channel -- so we raised anchor, moved 100 or so yards and dropped it again. We decided we were okay.

We spent a couple of hours trying to finalize plans for our son and grandson’s visit to Norfolk over the Memorial Day weekend – rental car, marina, entertainment while they’re with us, etc. We’ll probably spend one more day in Oriental and then head out on the Neuse River early Monday if the weather is good. There is a bit of change in the weather forecast after Sunday and we don’t want to be on the Neuse if the weather is bad --- so we’ll just have to wait and see.

We went to bed early as we were tired. We’ve had a couple of long days.

Sunrise in the anchorage -- a couple of boats had already departed

Notice to STOP if the red light is blinking -- live firing in progress

This was part of the restricted/prohibited area -- looked pretty nice, but you wouldn't what to go there

Range Control Tower at the firing range

We passed some boat campers. Looked like they'd staked out their spot for the day.

As I mentioned, we were pretty much on a straight line course today. On our starboard side we had all the "spoil" islands. Looked like you could walk from one to the other for miles and miles ....

..... like these 2 boys were doing. Their boat was parked a couple of islands away and they were just walking from one island to the other. The depth of the water all the way out to the barrier island was only a couple of feet.

Here's a shot looking back at several of the spoil islands --- kind of hard to see, but they run for miles and miles and people like to land their boats on them and then relax, party, walk from one to the other, etc.

Passing by Atlantic Beach

There was quite a bit of current at this bridge that made boat handling difficult-- as evidenced by the big "owie" in the middle, someone had a more difficult time than we did. Wonder what the boat looked like after the collison.

A shot of Morehead City as we passed by

It was a very busy day on the waterway going through the Morehead City/Beaufort area. With the Beaufort Inlet and several rivers converging in this area it can get pretty entertaining. Almost reminded us of Annapolis - except there were not as many sailboats.

Approaching the bridges

Tug at the industrial dock in Morehead City. In addition to all the pleasure craft there were tugs and barges which added to the chaos.

Looking back at the city as we, once again, entered our "straight line" route for the day

We saw lots of dolphins today. Was able to get a fair shot of a couple jumping

There were fishermen sitting on the bulkhead at the bridge. This was the first time we'd seen them right on the bridge. Usually there are signs prohibiting fishing from an actively used bridge.

We posted pictures of pink houses the last 2 days. Didn't see any pink houses of note today, but got a shot of a lime green one, including the lime green boat at the dock.