Kind of a gray day to start with and light winds. The sun did come out until later in the morning. This section of the ICW has really 3 parts to it. The first part is along the Atlantic from the New River Inlet to the Moorhead City area where the ICW turns inland thru a combination of a river and a cut. The last part is the Neuse River that is not extremely deep (average maybe 15′) but is several miles wide and the water can kick up here on windy days.
We did not leave until about 10:30 this morning because I had a gentleman out that helped straighten a bent bow rail. We bent it a couple of weeks ago when we were docking in Beaufort SC. A line was put over the rail instead of under. The straightening went pretty well. The rail is not nearly as noticeable as it was before we started.
Starting later gave us a lot less traffic on the ICW because everybody who was moving for the day was ahead of us. A reasonable number of boats going South on the ICW. The area between Swansboro and Moorhead City has a reasonable amount of development, houses, along the way. The ICW is fairly wide in this area but the spoils areas where they put dredge material has over the years created some long narrow islands along side the ICW channel.
Moorhead City is right across the inlet from Beaufort NC and you actually make the turn to the river/cut between the two cities. Because of the islands and dredge spoils areas you really do not get a look at Beaufort NC. We have several pictures of industrial shoreline in the Moorhead City area with a railroad bridge, warehouses and loading docks. None of it looks real active right now.
The River/Cut area is less developed overall. There are pockets where housing has been built and about 10 miles outside Moorhead City, there we two marina/boat yards next to each other that serviced large yachts and mega yachts. Seemed kind of strange to have these yours well off the Ocean but I guess that affords them protect from the hurricanes. The last portion of the river area was quite developed with homes along the shore and some of these were fairly large.
The Neuse River section was wide open with little development and the wind had kicked up so there was a chop on the water. It was about a 10 mile cruise down to the River Dunes Marina on Broad Creeks. This is a large upscale marina that is part of a residential development. They have limited the home styles to “southern” within the community with about 6 different home layouts and outside features to choose from.
The docks were great and the marina had a swimming pool and hot tub area. Situated around the swimming pool where cabana style little structures that the walls on 3 sides essentially lifted up so you can have the breeze come thru without being in the sun.
Met one other boater in this marina that we have first seen in Georgetown and have more or less been on the same schedule. The boat is a 44′ DeFever and they are from Connecticut.