tadhana: topsail sound anchorage (surf city, NC).

we stayed two nights in spooners creek marina. the first morning, it POURED. that was kind of a surprise. we weren't expecting to get THAT much rain! our plan had been to break out the bicycles and ride to the walmart but there was no letup to the rain and in the end, we walked to the store in the rain with our umbrellas and then called for a cab to take us back to the marina with all of our STUFF. the downpour finally ended in the late afternoon and that evening, we had dinner with steve and patti on WIND DANCER.

LOVE AND LUCK, the boat that broke down on our first day of the SAIL rally finally caught up with the group and arrived that day. i'm afraid that there was some celebration that evening on another boat and it involved something called "apple pie moonshine!"

in any case, we left spooners creek before 7:00 a.m. and headed back out into the ICW with the intention of spending the night at the mile hammock anchorage but we managed to make the 11:00 a.m. onslow bridge opening. poor TADHANA's engine worked very hard to make that bridge. we didn't think it was possible but the bridge tender held it open for us and we kept up a speed of 11 knots - i think the fastest that TADHANA has ever gone was 12 knots downhill! and we don't want to talk about how much fuel we were burning ugh.... in any case, then we found ourselves almost to the anchorage before noon and decided to just keep going to leave the space at the anchorage for the rest of the fleet. instead, we decided on the topsail sound anchorage - another 20 miles further - and it was a good decision. we had one more bridge opening to negotiate before our turn-off and we got there early enough to have to wait for the on-the-hour opening. topsail sound was more like what we were missing from cruising the chesapeake - a quiet anchorage with salt marshes. the hook was down at 3:00 p.m. which gave us time to dinghy consuelo to shore at a public "ramp," which was really just the end of the road into some grass and a little beach. we walked one block up to the highway, crossed the road and there was the atlantic ocean! topsail island is one of north carolina's barrier islands. the sand was white and so very fine.

i mentioned LOVE AND LUCK earlier (and the apple pie moonshine) as tom got a call from the folks on that boat just as we were done anchoring. unfortunately, they had run aground at one of the trouble spots, brown's inlet. nothing tom could do but tell them to wait for the tide to come back in tonight and extricate themselves from the mud - we were 30 miles ahead. luckily for them, wally, as the tail end of the fleet, caught up to them eventually but we will have to hear how that saga ended. it seems to me that LOVE AND LUCK isn't having too much luck lately.

another early morning for us tomorrow. in the meantime, i can hear the roar of the ocean surf from my desk :)