Weather – paying the price

Just a short report, while on a weather delay after having pretty nice conditions most of the way north from Key West….
As expected some time, the weather worsened so a planned stop at Osprey Marina near Myrtle Beach turned into a three day pause – and a very pleasant interlude. I was surprised there by the arrival of a fellow CCYC sailor on his Catalina 47 – Escapade. They are also headed north for home, but on a more aggressive schedule. They easily outpaced me when we headed out. It was an early departure in some fog, but slowly warming temps.

An easy day’s run brought us to St James Plantation Marina – a fancy name for a lovely resort-marina, but with very reasonable rates, a nice restaurant and store.

Next stop was the Carolina State Park Marina at mile 297. I stopped here on the way down and shared a couple days with Mark & Diana Doyle- authors of the Waterway Cruising guides. It is a simple but clean and inexpensive marina and recently upgraded. Very quiet this time of year…we were the only occupied boat!

The trip here included a long run (about 9 miles) up the Cape Fear River – felt longer. The name should offer a clue. My bad timing put us on the river heading north against about a 4kt current. The first couple hours kept boat speed to less than 2 mph – hardly a fast walk. Regardless, the current eased and we made the Marina mid-afternoon. Once again we had approaching bad weather

I’m writing this waiting out nasty rain all day the first day, then high winds (20-35 mph) that arrived overnight. The marina has a nice boaters lounge – warm, dry and a store next door – so a good place to spend the day. Not wanting to be out in this.

The forecast promises better the next few days, so we’ll be pushing northward as quick as we can …..