Run to Wilmington, NC -- June 14 -- and then a break in our trip

We had a four-and-a-half-hour run today to Wilmington, NC, which is about 14 miles north of the Intracoastal on the Cape Fear River. We didn't stop here two years ago because it was out of our way (and still is), but we needed to this year because it had the only marina we could find where we could dock for twelve days while we travel north to see the kids and grandkids. It turned out that we really enjoyed Wilmington and our run up the Cape Fear River. 

We decided to spend the night at the Embassy Suites downtown right next door to the marina because it was very hot (high of 95) and our dock at the marina didn't have power so we would have had to run the generator all night for air conditioning. (The boat doesn't need AC power while we're gone because we will only be running the refrigerator, which is DC and can get all the current it needs from the boat's solar panel.) This turned out to be a very good decision, as the Embassy Suites had a nice restaurant overlooking the river and a spectacular rooftop bar, so we had a lovely evening without having to venture out into the heat.

We could easily see Craunological II from the rooftop bar. All of the rectangular structures in the foreground are floating hotel rooms. Craunological II can be seen just past them.

Looking downstream from the rooftop bar we could see the container docks in the distance and the WW2 battleship USS North Carolina right across the Cape Fear River. The battleship is located just west and north of the lift bridge.

This is what the lift bridge and USS North Caroline looked like as approached Wilmington on the Cape Fear River. 

The Port of Wilmington container dock isn't very big, but both ships there were actively loading or unloading.

We saw this general cargo ship -- the Ancash Queen -- leaving Wilmington as we were heading up the Cape Fear River. The First Mate looked it up online and found that it was bound for Philadelphia. 

The US Army runs a military terminal at Sunny Point near the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Wikipedia says describes it as "one of the largest military terminals in the world". (Look up "Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point".) There was only ship there when we passed by, and we couldn't get close enough to see its name, as access to the area is restricted.  

There is a four-foot tide at Wilmington, even though it is about 25 miles upriver from the ocean. We had a flood tide on our way up the Cape Fear River, so we had a nice current pushing us along, as seen on this buoy (on our starboard side per "red, right, return"). There was a group of pelicans perched on nearly every buoy in the lower stretch of the river. 

Near the mouth of the river there was a stiff east breeze fighting the flood tide which made for a bouncy stretch for a few miles. This ended as soon as we got in the lee of the east bank of the river, near where the intracoastal heads off to the east to continue up the NC coast. 

There are lots of pictures in today's blog because of all the shipping activity on the Cape Fear River. That plus the rooftop bar made the 28-mile detour to Wilmington worthwhile. Plus the fact that it met our need for a place with good airport access where we could keep the boat safe for twelve days. Wilmington has a nice little airport just ten minutes from downtown, and we were able to get nonstop flights to Boston on Saturday the 15th and back from NYC on Monday the 24th. The blog will go silent during this time. When we return we will continue on the Intracoastal to Norfolk and then some cruising time in the Chesapeake.