Layover in Wrightsville Beach

—Blogpost written by Bob

Sunday, April 29

This is our first morning (of a 3-day layover at Seapath Yacht Club) in Wrightsville Beach.  It is a beautiful morning following a cool night.  After a good nights sleep and knowing we have a couple non-travel days ahead of us greatly improves my morale. 

S/V Rainy Days is all the way
out at the end of this dock.

Yesterday, particularly after the awfully slow trip up the Cape Fear River, I was ready to give up this lifestyle for a cabin in the woods.  However, today, I wouldn’t change a thing about it. Of course, the rum chata in my morning coffee may have something to do with this too.

A view of the condominiums at Seapath.

We walked to the beach this morning at had a great breakfast sandwich at The Workshop, a nice little coffee shop at the beach end of the bridge--it was about a mile away from the marina.  After breakfast, we walked another block to see the beach.

The beach at Wrightsville Beach

Everyone here in Wrightsville Beach seem so friendly.  At the coffee shop we struck up a conversation with a guy that gave us some tips of where to go out for dinner and everyone we passed on our walk to the beach said something nice to us.

We relaxed all day, listening to music on our satellite radio.  We have a number of chores to do while we are here (change engine oil and filter, provisioning, etc.) but we have put them off until tomorrow.

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We have been kicking around names for our new little black and white Maine coon kitten.  Our original idea was to name her Gypsy but recently we’ve moved toward Lita (short for Lolita).  She is still at the cattery and we will be picking her up on May 12.  We've been getting updates on her.  She now weighs 5 pounds.  We're like expectant parents.

Does she look like Lita?

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Wrightsville Beach is a nice place--we would consider wintering here some year that we didn't want to go all the way to the Bahamas or the Keys.

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I think one of the main reasons that I'm feeling so down lately is the breakages we've experienced on this trip back to Baltimore.  Even though I do a lot of preventative maintenance, boat things still break.  I can't imagine how bad it would be if I didn't do the amount of preventative maintenance that I now do.

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We went out for a great dinner at the Bridge Tender Restaurant, just across the draw bridge from the marina. It was too bad that the restaurant was a half-mile walk from the marina. My legs feel like they did after the fist day of hunting season when I was young in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Monday, April 30

After a good night’s sleep, my morale has improved ten-fold. I reworked our travel plan a little, eliminating some very long days on the water without impacting too much on our end date.  (On our last ravel day we used one hour shifts at the helm since we were manually steering--I think we need to keep that schedule all the way back to Baltimore.)

Our fist item on our agenda this morning is to change the engine oil and filter, as well as checking the antifreeze level and the level of the transmission fluid—I do this maintenance every 100 engine hours. The next time I do this engine maintenance we’ll be in Baltimore.

The area just east of the marina is comprised of
seasonal waterfront homes, many are duplexes.

Caption Jack sitting in the cockpit
absorbing the morning sun.

As I snapped the above photo, the morning was still cool (as it often is in the early spring) and Maggie was cooking bacon in the galley.  It was just a purely pleasant moment, both for me and Captain Jack.

We had lunch today at a fantastic Mexican restaurant called Tower Seven at the eastern end of the bridge to the beach—their great Mexican food really makes it worth revisiting!  Because the marina’s loaner van was in use, we got an Uber ride to PUBLIX for provisioning.  Our Uber ride back to the marina was in a Jaguar Type S--it was the first time I’ve ever ridden in a Jaguar—they are pretty nice!

We are currently at MM 283.  Our next anchorage will be in Half Moon Bay and our next major stop will be in Galesville, MD, just south of Annapolis.  Stay tuned...

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