There are many reasons to love Carolina Beach NC. For us we first found it on the chart and headed there based on the 360 degree protection. This little cove is small and typically ends up with no actual wave action from storms. Although there is some less protection from the wind itself with things so flat. There are also inexpensive mooring balls, and the town itself is a practical stop provisioning wise. A good grocery store, multiple hardware stores, an automotive shop, places to have packages sent, and a bunch of coffee shops to choose from.

With us arriving mid January this year I wasn’t expecting much action, but we found that we were the ONLY boat there for most of our time. There were a couple of days that had some folks passing through but we ended up staying about ten days.

Why ten days in January? Well, the reason was Ryan. I had a few meetings that we needed to work around and then there was Ryan. Ryan needed to take a SCUBA class so he could get insurance for his upcoming Hull Cleaning Business. And when we called around he could get a private one on one class in Carolina Beach for about half of the price of a group class in other places. So off we went.

The first thing we noticed in town was that we’d left our dinghy battery unplugged for about two months in the freezing temperatures and it was DEAD, super dead. Not “dead” dead but the battery management system had triggered so the battery wouldn’t take a charge like normal. We ended up having to plug into the solar panels and with short winter days it took about three days before the battery woke up and would take a charge. We ended up ordering a new battery charger that has a “wake up” feature that the old AC charger did not have so if it happens again we wont’ have the issue.

We then made our way to the SCUBA school where Ryan signed up and spent a couple of days taking the online knowledge part of the course. Also in these early few days when we were still rowing Liam and I made our way to the public library to scan in all of his USCG Captain’s License Paperwork so we could email it in, which we did. So there is now just a waiting game on that project.

Ryan then spent a day taking an UBER to the deep water pool in the next town over to start the practical part of his SCUBA Class, that’s where he discovered that the day 2 and 3 of the in the water part of the course would be three hours away. So we looked at the different options and ended up needing to reserve a hotel room and rent him a car for the trip.

Then it was finally time to go. With the Sunday approaching being forecast for cold rain all day I didn’t want to hand steer our way down the ICW in that so we left in great warm weather on Saturday and had a pleasant overnight sail. Destination Fernandina Beach Florida. But things didn’t go as planned. And that is a story for another post.