Distance: 35 nm/Time: 7 hrs
This was originally going to be a shorter day. Thirty-one miles west of Morehead City is the Onslow Beach Bridge, which has been under construction for a while. Its very limited (and often changing) opening schedule has been a source of confusion for cruisers since the construction began. The latest intel said that on weekdays it was open on demand only from noon to 1:00 pm, and then not again until 5:00 pm till 6:00 am or something. Basically, during daylight hours it would only open for an hour in the middle of the day.
The problem was getting there by noon from Morehead City. Assuming no current, it was almost a 6-hour trip, meaning that unless I left an hour before daylight, there was no way to get there by the small opening window. Instead, it meant having to break what should have been a single-day’s journey into two days. I would have to find an anchorage closer to it to spend the first night, sleep in, leave at a time that would get me to the bridge mid-day, then find another anchorage on the other side which I could get to before sundown. There were not a lot of options for these limitations which is why a lot of cruisers would just wait in the Morehead City/Beaufort area until the weekend when the construction paused and the bridge was open on the hour/half hour all day long.
But this was Wednesday, and I wasn’t about to sit around for three days. This was the another reason I had wanted to go offshore, to skip this bridge. Instead, I would now have to anchor in Swansboro, just east of the Onslow Beach Bridge.
Knowing that I only had about a 4-hour trip, I wasn’t in a hurry to get up and didn’t weigh anchor until 9:40. It was a cool but beautiful morning and I headed south knowing that I was going to have two short days. Today, I had plenty of time to get to Swansboro, and the next day the only appropriate anchorage was Mile Hammock, only an hour and a half on the other side of the bridge.
However, on a whim, around noon and before anchoring in Swansboro, I decided to call the Onslow Beach Bridge just to confirm the latest reports I had. Lo and behold, the bridge tender informed me that construction had finally been completed a few days prior, so the bridge was back to opening at the top and the bottom of the hour every day, now.
At first blush, that was good news…but only if I could make it all the way to the anchorage on the far side before nightfall. I suddenly wished that I had departed at first light instead of sleeping in! Everything now depended on what kind of current I would experience I felt it worth a try to save a day of travel. In the end, I ended up making it to Mile Hammock with an hour to spare. It was a large, very protected cove that could hold probably 10 boats if they were spaced wisely. Today, however, there were only two other boats when I arrived. I picked a spot far away from both of them, but had difficulty getting the anchor to set the first try (and the first time I haven’t been able to get the anchor to set on my first try!), and so had to relocate a bit. The second attempt set hard, and the night was peaceful.