January 17, 2025
0830 Depart Mile Hammock Bay after a night full of military ruckus following behind the Nordic style tug that they shared the anchorage with.
0845 Dolphin sighting!
0850 With Popcorn at the helm, Pisces arrives at the New River Inlet which is a little intense with shoaling, lots of navigational markers for multiple channels and strong current. Popcorn knows to follow the markers and not other boats which is great because at the inlet, the motor vessel ahead takes a sharp left into the channel for the inlet out to the ocean! Capt OhNo takes over when the crew sees super shallow depths on the reader. As Pisces passes the inlet entrance, they see the tug making a sharp turn around and suspect they did not actually want to go into the ocean. Pisces traverses her own path through uncharted shoals, a very narrow channel and is being pushed along by the current. Pisces sees 9.1 knots!
1430 Pisces arrives at Wrightsville Beach and anchors with new tugboat friends New World from the Mile Hammock Bay anchorage. Capt OhNo and Popcorn launch LBP to go say hello to Angelfish who beat Pisces to Wrightsville by going offshore from Beaufort to Wrightsville. Capt OhNo and Popcorn invite Angelfish over for dinner aboard Pisces. OhNo and Popcorn carry on to explore the town. Pop and OhNo are disappointed with the town vibes; OhNo notes, “This town has really gone downhill over the years”. The vibes have changed from a quaint beachfront to a hipster college scene. Vibes confirmed by young local kids in a skiff zipping circles around boats anchored.
1730 Steve and Karen from Angelfish arrive in their dinghy for dinner party! Popcorn whips up a delicious pesto pasta and Angelfish brings a tasty salad, a family recipe from Steve’s mom! After dinner, OhNo plays guitar and sings songs with Popcorn. A great time is had by all.
2030 The crews bid each other other farewell not sure when their paths will pass again.
We boarded Pisces The Catamaran on December 24, 2024 and pointed her south in a part shakedown, part healing and grieving trip. Notes are pulled from our handwritten, on board log book. Crew are:
Captain Clay (captain and owner of Sail & Surf Adventures, married to Ally); call sign Captain OhNo
First Mate Ally (head chef & lead investigator of all maritime mysteries, married to Clay); call sign Popcorn
Second Mate Carly (Ally’s mom, Clay’s mother-in-law, one-woman cleaning crew of Pisces); call sign Lieutenant Swabs
Dahlia (the cutest ship cat); call sign DD
*there is a very important and traumatic and magical process of getting Pisces that we are working on sharing here. We figured if we waited to start updating until we figured out those words though, we might never start updating at all. Know that there was a before and an after and this trip is part of our grieving process for our brother/son/friend Jacob.*