9/21/15
Southport NC
Posted by Bill

I can’t believe it has been 4 months and a day since we have docked the boat here in Southport, and we have not untied the lines once. Today we did it! It took us about 2 hours to get everything stowed, clearing the decks, disconnecting power chords and cable TV cable. When you live aboard and stay in one place for an extended period, you get lax about keeping stuff secured, and that was the price paid to get it back to voyaging status. Tide and wind looked good, so off we went.

We invited our dock neighbors John and Marianne to go with us. Most of their boating has been on power boats or their sunfish day sailor, and they have only been sailing on a bigger sailboat a few times. We have become good friends and we do stuff with them frequently, and this was a fun way to spend the day with them. In addition to all of that, we needed to do some shakedown sailing to prepare for the trip south, and I also wanted to check out how the new autopilot worked.

We shoved off, motored out of the Cape Fear River, and sailed down along Oak Island. Then came about and sailed further out into the ocean, motoring back in the Cape Fear shipping channel.

Oak Island and Caswell Beach, including Caswell Beach lighthouse:

Sailing back toward Bald Head Island:

Bald Head Island and Bald Head lighthouse:

Marianne took the helm!

John helped with the lines.

The weather was great and we all had a great time. Believe it or not, this was the first time in over a year that we left the dock to just go sailing for the day!