Boating, Fishing, and Travel Information for Morehead City (Port Terminal), NC

Most of the small-craft facilities are along the southern waterfront of Morehead City. A yacht basin is on the north side of the city, off the northwest side of the North Carolina State Ports Authority Terminal. Other small-craft facilities are at nearby Beaufort and Radio Island, and westward of the city along the Intracoastal Waterway.

Beaufort Inlet is about 220 miles southwestward of the Chesapeake Bay entrance and the same distance northeastward of Charleston. It is the approach to Morehead City Harbor, the most important coastal harbor between Cape Henry and the Cape Fear River.

Heavy swells build up in Beaufort Inlet Channel with northerly or southerly winds, making boating hazardous and entry or departure of ships difficult during unfavorable tidal conditions.

A Federal project provides for a channel 47 feet deep over the ocean bar at Beaufort Inlet, thence 45 feet to a turning basin off the North Carolina State Ports Authority Terminal at Morehead City with 45 feet in the turning basin’s east leg and 35 feet in the west leg; thence a 12-foot channel and turning basin westward along the Morehead City waterfront as far as Tenth Street; thence a 6-foot channel to the Intracoastal Waterway in Bogue Sound.

From Morehead City the waterway follows a dredged channel through Bogue Sound. The Atlantic Beach-Morehead City (State Route 1182) fixed highway bridge over Bogue Sound at Mile 206.7 has a clearance of 65 feet.