Anyone boating around topsail beach? Eastern nc?

PickleRick

My mom, sister and nephews all live near Wilmington NC.  Other than visiting Carolina beach years ago and camping in the beach i don't know crap about NC.  Im planning on trailering my cabin boat to NC and staying a week on the water if possible.  Id like to find one of the marina/hotels that you find in the keys if possible.  Spend the week fishing and boating, when not on the boat hit up the local eateries for food and drink waking distance from marina/hotel.


Im wanting to make it around April when my kid is on spring break.  Any recommendations?

212rowboat

Swansboro, morehead city, or Beaufort is the ticket... That is north of topsail.  You'll have to go all the way south to Wilmington for same accomodations, and it wont be as nice.  If you're military or know someone who is, camp Lejeune and new river have decent marinas... 

If it were me, and it sometimes is as I live in this area, id consider morehead city and Beaufort.... Both have all kinds of things to do on and off water. If you choose south, id go all the way to southport. 

PickleRick

Thanks for the info! Its still not a set in stone trip, im hoping to have a bigger boat by then

212rowboat

alright... on a computer now... 

you'll like it north of Topsail because of the Intercoastal Waterway, which runs directly in front of my house.  it offers protected navigation which is nice, as the inlets around here are not nice.  they're treacherous at best. 

you'll be in southern end of this coast (duh!), but this should show you the distance between topsail and Morehead City/Beaufort (they're adjacent).  it's perhaps four hours travel by water up the coast in the image above, and 'just' about all of it is protected.  

you'll find anchorage in any of the labeled towns/ports, but again the northern end is the more interesting and more accommodating for Cruisers.  Whether you 'stay' there or not, i highly recommend the excursion.  

at shackleford banks, between morehead and cape lookout, are the wild ponies.  pretty neat for ladies and kids.  Beaufort is one of the oldest ports on the coast... all kinds of craft places, maritime museums, great food, and very friendly small town atmosphere...  Morehead has fantastic food, the most modern dockage and waterside hotels, marina's but unless you're in the stretch adjacent Beaufort (separated by radio island) it isn't as interesting... they DO have several marinas with good reputations.  Swansoboro is a quaint little seaside town halfway between topsail (roughly) and Lookout... municipal docking as well as private docking, but the storm last year took a chunk out of the community (37" of rain in three days and not mentioning the wind).  Emerald Isle all the way to Atlantic Beach should be mentioned- they both have docking area's both private and municipal... Salter Path (between EI and AB) has the Aquarium which is really neat.. 

you simply won't find anything like this south of Lejuene... until you get to wrightsville and south... which is more ritzy (and costly) and without a hint of the atmosphere the northern places mentioned have. 

212rowboat

one more thing.... pay CLOSE attention to navigational aides... it may look like wide open water, and it is... but it can go from 10~12' to 10~12" in the length of your boat, and the shallow flats are 80+% of the water in the ICW. 

PickleRick

I figured as much.  Ill get a good gps nav unit before heading there.  Its not like the keys where I can see blue and brown, the keys are my only ocean/bay boating experience outside of kayaks.