NC Anchorages – AICW, Bogue Sound to New River (Statute Mile 207 to 247)
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Please Note That Anchorages Below Are Listed in Rough Geographic Format, Moving North to South
PLEASE CAREFULLY READ OUR DISCLAIMER!
Please Note That Anchorages Below Are Listed in Rough Geographic Format, Moving North to South
Statute Mile: 229
Lat/Lon: 34 41.115 North/077 07.201 West
Location: in the Swansboro channel between unlighted nun buoy #2 and the fixed, low level White Oak River bridge
Minimum Depth: 8-feet
Swing Room: sufficient room for vessels as large as 48 feet
Special Comment: This anchorage is swept by strong tidal currents. Be sure your hook is well set.
Foul Weather Shelter: Fair; wide open to southwesterly winds
Rating:
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Centered on the Location of This Anchorage:
Statute Mile: 244.5
Lat/Lon: near 34 33.058 North/077 19.510 West
Location: entrance channel lies north of the gap between the ICW’s flashing daybeacon #66 and unlighted daybeacon #67
Minimum Depth: 8-feet
Special Comment:These waters are under the control of the US Marines. Anchorage may not permitted during certain exercises
Swing Room: sufficient for vessels as large as 50 feet
Foul Weather Shelter: Good
Rating:
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Centered on the Location of This Anchorage:
Stayed here in January 2013, as well as May of 2013.
Quiet anchorage in January, pretty noisy in May. Helicopter flights – landings and takeoffs – included passing directly overhead at less than 500 ft, continued until 10:30 pm this May! My wife did not have to remind me to turn on the anchor light that evening.
I also found the area of poor holding this May. We slowly dragged as we set the anchor. Pulled it up, and on the second try, setting it more slowly, finally got it to grab. Interesting after maybe 100+ nights on the hook along the ICW, this is the only spot we didn’t grab the bottom first try. We may have powered down on it faster than the bottom could handle. Maybe the trick here is to back down a bit slower than normally.
Anchored in Mile Hammock Bay on 19-Jul-2010. Wanted to make an early start and pulled anchor in a SE wind, blowing us NW and aground. We were NW of the last marker in. Got to do the Onslow County Dance on the floor of Mile Hammock Bay, pushing and cajoling our trawler in waist-deep-water, in the right direction until climbing back aboard, starting engine, and moving off. Marines took there hovercraft out the night before, so we were entertained by that and some V-22 Ospreys doing maneuvers before anchoring. Floor of MHB, dark mud, shells, pretty hard. Still cleaning the mud from my tennis shoes.
When we got to Mile Hammock Bay, there were already 5 boats anchored. We found a spot just inside the basin entrance and dropped the hook. Later four more boats joined the anchorage making a total of ten boats (make that eleven counting the permanent resident). Considering the high wind situation (20 and gusting) we all needed maximum swing room. The wind stayed strong until sometime after 0130. Despite other’s remarks on holding, our Rocna held firm with only 5:1 all chain scope.
Spent a very calm night here on 21 Feb 2010. We were the only boat in the anchorage as would be expected this time of the year. Leaving the next morning we found two dredges at the New River Inlet. We did bump going past them but after calling the lead dredge, we found the right path and never saw less than 10 feet.
There is one spot where getting an anchor to set can be more difficult. Directly in front and close to the large ramp can sometimes be a difficult spot, at least with CQR. Have had similar problem there twice now, and since it was sparsely populated, spent a couple of hours playing with scope, backing down/not back down, etc before giving up and moving further to the east(?) and edge of the charted white area resulted in good holding. One of only 2 spots that Kittiwake has had trouble more than once. While anchored the marines did some underwater navigation, and it was enjoyable to watch – Kittiwake was an obstacle. Remember, it’s the marine corps water (just like the bridge), and they’re usually nice enough to let us use it.
Comments from Cruisers (2)
We anchored here last night and had a really hard time. We had dinner on a fellow cruisers boat and came back out to find our boat had dragged over 100 feet. We have a fishermen’s anchor that is rated for 60 foot boat (we have a 28 foot sailboat) and it was good and set when we left. When the current shifted the chain, the boat sailed around the anchor, fouled it and caused us to drift. (which has never happened to us before.) We grounded briefly which saved our boat from hitting any other boats but it was a tricky proposition to move the boat back to a good spot in that current, we set out a second anchor and spent most of the night checking it on the half hour to make sure we were staying in one spot. The current is swift and some of the holding ground is not great especially when the current switches, when we pulled up anchor today to go to Dudley’s Marina to sit out a blow(75 cents a foot by the way, worth it to not have to deal with an anchoring nightmare) our anchor had fouled again. Use heavy anchors if you are going to anchor here and try to be near your boat when the tide switches because it is a very challenging location.
We anchored just downstream of the bridge in July 2008. Good holding. A fair weather anchorage with currents no more or less strong than those all along the coast from Beaufort, NC to Fernandina Bch, FL
Rick