Carolina Beach Anchorage to Topsail Sound Anchorage

We left the Carolina Beach anchorage and quickly passed the Carolina Beach Inlet.  There were cars on the beach as we passed.  It was a beautiful day for lounging on the beach or surf fishing.  We missed the Wrightsville Beach Bridge opening by 5 minutes and it meant a 55 minute wait for the next opening.  We anticipated this possibility and pulled into the Wrightsville Beach Marina to take on fuel and wait for the bridge.  It was an easy on and off facing dock right on the ICW which made it very convenient for us.  We cast off in time to make the noon opening and were soon making good time down the ICW.

Cars on the Beach

We missed the Figure Eight Island Bridge opening by 5 minutes.  This could have delayed us by 25 minutes; however, a shrimp boat requested an opening 10 minutes later and as a commercial vessel, the bridge tender granted the request.  Thanks to the shimper, we were only delayed 15 minutes.

Our timing did not improve and we missed the Surf City Bridge opening by 5 minutes.  Rather than wait another 55 minutes to only go a few miles further to reach our planned anchorage, we reversed course and retraced our tracks for 3 miles to enter the Topsail Sound Anchorage.  Dwayne and Janet stayed in this very nice anchorage on the way south.  It is a beautiful location with ocean front homes to the east and grass marsh to the west.  You can dinghy ashore and walk to the Atlantic beaches.

The challenge with this anchorage is getting in through the very shallow and very narrow channel.  It was near low tide when we entered and more than once saw little or no water below us based on the depth sounder.  The depths improved once we were through the entrance channel.  We had a very peaceful night with 3 other boats at anchor here.