This morning we left Wrightsville Beach at 07:15 intending on making some good time to get to Beaufort NC.
There was a sandbar that someone had taken ownership of with a Tikki Umbrella and a parking meter.
We got through the Figure Eight Island Bridge at 08:00 and were pressing on to make the Surf City Bridge hourly swing when we had an over temperature alarm on the port gearbox. This required a precautionary shutdown of that engine while we tried to sort out the problem. While moving along on one engine we had our critter sighting of the day .... a giraffe!
We also passed close by some of the channel markers which always have an Osprey nest.
There was also a local brush fire which provided a local overcast sky which kept the heat down for most of the day.
We got to the Surf City Bridge at 11:00 and the New River Inlet by 13:00. This stretch of the ICWW channel passes through a slough-threaded marsh separated from the ocean by barrier beaches. Most of the small waterways dead-end inside the beach dunes.
After Captain Brian spoke with several of the engine service people, we decided to stop at Hammock Bay for an hour or so for lunch and to try to diagnose the gearbox problem. After a half hour in the 120F engine room we still did not have a solution but highly suspected a defective temperature sensor in the gearbox. We decided to press on with one engine to get closer to Beaufort NC where there are major service facilities.
Shortly after leaving Hammock Bay, we encountered Camp Lejeune, a US Marine training facility where they fire live artillery rounds over the ICWW on occasion. Luckily they were practising elsewhere on the base today.
For our neighbours on Bay Berry Dr. .... The US Coast Guard has a vessel named after your street!
One of the local activities we saw today were people harvesting clams by standing in the water with a rake and dropping them into floating nets.
We stopped at Dudley Marine in Swansbourough NC at around 18:00.
The overcast from the humidity and local brush fires curtailed the Summer Solstice sunset.
Our Cumulative Totals:
Distance Travelled = 1075.9 nm
Travel Time = 152 h 34 m
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