Southern Style finished her trip from Florida to NC on Saturday afternoon at 4:00pm. It was bitterly COLD!! We woke to a temperature of 26F and it did reach above 33F all day. It was difficult just getting off the dock in the morning due to the ice and frost.
The dock in Southport was completely covered in frost. It was actually pretty dangerous just trying to walk from the bow to the stern to remove the lines. Not to mention the power cords were frozen solid and had a mind of their own and did not want to cooperate going back into the Glendenning.
We did get off the dock just before 7:00am to catch the Wrightsville Beach draw bridge at 9:00. At least it was a sunny day, but windy as usual. After the bridge we went the 5 miles to the Figure 8 Island Bridge. It has a height of 23 feet. We thought we needed it to open, but the bridge tender said it would be another half hour before they would open.
So we decided to drop the antennas and see if we could make it since the "book" said our height was 22 feet 8 inches. The bridge tender was great and he came out of his building to look for us and let us know if we could make it under the span. We approached the bridge very slowly and stopped with half the boat under the bridge to see if the anchor light would clear. Gail was up top looking as well and both Gail and bridge tender yelled down that they "thought" we would make it. So under we went. The bridge tender said we cleared by about 4 inches. WOW! At least now we know the height requirement of the boat. :)
So we were now off to see if we could travel the 15 miles to the Surf City Bridge to make the 10:00 opening. If we couldn't make the 10 o'clock we were going to have to wait an hour for the next opening. This is exactly why I wanted to have a boat with big engines that would allow us to "get up and go" if we needed to.
We opened her up and ran hard to try and make the bridge. We knew it would be close. On one hand it helped that it was so cold because there was not another boat on the water that we needed to slow down for. However, there were a few spots that we did need to slow for since it was very shallow and it was near low tide. We did our best keeping safety in mind.
Thankfully, we did make the bridge, but without one second to spare. Now under the Surf City bridge, we had 20 miles to go to make the next bridge at Onslow Beach. Again, we got up and moved, but the timing was a little bit easier. We didn't have any problem making this bridge. Once we made the bridge at Onslow the rest of the day was a piece of cake. We ran up to the ICW to Beaufort and stopped at Jarrett Bay for some of the cheapest fuel on the waterway. We paid $1.58 per gallon. We really topped the tanks off at that price.
Then it was on to the last 40 miles to New Bern. The Neuse River was snotty with the wind out of the north with short choppy 3 foot seas. The boat performed well, but we took spray over the flybridge. By the time we got in, the boat was completely covered in ice. It was so bad that the lines Gail left in the cockpit were completely frozen solid. She had to go to the bow locker to get new lines to tie up the boat in New Bern.
We were met by our good friend Dave Hawley who helped us tie up. It was good to be finished with the trip, tied up and home. Dave and his girlfriend Paula got the nickel tour of the boat. After a short clean up we met them for dinner and celebrated our arrival with the new boat. We look forward to starting a new chapter in our boating careers.
We
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