"South for the Winter" : Topsail Island, NC to Wilmington, NC

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Nov 15. Topsail Island, NC to Wilmington, NC.
We left the marina a little before 0900. We run 28 miles on the ICW to mile 295 where Snow cut starts and joins the ICW to Cape Fear River. The cut is well dredged and marked for commercial boats. At 1230 we turned into Cape Fear River. I saw a huge black cloud in our direction. We were about to find out why the river is called Cape Fear River. We had to run 12 miles to Wilmington, our destination. It is very tricky river with obstructions on both sides and many turns. About two miles into the river the cloud was on top of us and broke loose: The wind picked up the seas to about four feet waves and the rain started. We had 10 more miles to go. It was very difficult to spot the markers through the squall. Once more in this trip my heart was in my trout. Another low pressure coming through that Vitto thought wasn’t going to be that bad. We had nowhere to hide. Every turn had an independent transit. That explains how demanding it is to navigate this river. We navigated from transit to transit until we reached Wilmington Port before the bridge. We run maybe 9 miles under this condition. It felt forever. It felt that it was never going to stop. And then, it did. It stopped as we were going under Wilmington Bridge. The “City Docks” are located one mile away from the bridge.
We saw the “North Carolina battle ship” the marina is right across the river from it. We arrived. We docked at 1430.
We logged 37 miles today.
This is the end of the trip for me. I am getting off the boat and flying back to Ft. Lauderdale, FL to meet my mom. We are heading to the Caribbean Islands the day after tomorrow. And tomorrow I celebrate that I was born!
I wish good seas and good times to “The Livin end” and the next crew.

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