Day 60: Southport to Swansboro, NC

We left Southport early under low, dark gray clouds. First we entered the Cape Fear River and traveled north in the ship's channel which extends up to Wilmington. The average depth was 46'. Up the river a few miles a narrow channel breaks off from the main ship artery and goes northeast with depths of 7' to 8'.

Once on the ICW the depth was from 9' to 17' in most places. Exceptions are spoil areas where creeks and small rivers drain in from the ocean. Here silt and sand build up and typically depths drop to 5' and 6'. We passed about eight of these spoil areas.

Unlike South Carolina, the ICW in NC is mostly wild. The low lands, marsh and swamps continue and today provide hundreds of square miles of preserves.

There were many bridges over our route and thankfully most have a vertical clearance of 65'. However there were several bridges which we could not slip under with our air draft of 22' which I rounded up to 25' to be safe. We spent at least 1 hour 15 minutes waiting for them to open. Some open on the hour or every half hour and some open on demand.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the trip was when four huge, high-speed inflatables armed with two 50 caliber machine guns mounted on their bows. The crew was all in full camouflage fighting gear.  They were outboard powered and must have been going at least 50 knots. Later we heard what sounded like artillery fire and three or four jet fighter aircrafts were screaming overhead.

As we neared Swansboro it started raining. We tied up at Dudley's Marina at 2:30pm