Leeward Bay Marina

This is a wonderful marina, and Bob, the owner and his wife and son as well as the manager Laurie all combined to make our boat purchase from them and our temporary stay in their marina a pleasurable experience.
For 3 years, a hundred or more people WARNED us to not be looking at used sailboats in any of the Wilmington marinas, that they are all overly distressed, dilapidated, and therefore too great of a risk because «they all were owned by divorced men, who lived on them until they lost them» We went in with our eyes wide open, and as soon as we saw THE BOAT for us, we paid a reputable hull cleaning company to clean it and give us their non-​binding opinion of what they saw and how they interpreted what they saw (Scuba Duba).
We negotiated a fair price (it was a stripped down, structurally sound, clean, freshly painted boat with all distractions absent) and after we added the essentials to make it safe, and hired a local to desalt the diesel engine, everything was copacetic… and the marine survey valued the boat market value at exactly what we paid.
All the guys around the marina were friendly and helpful, and my wife felt comfortable at the marina and missed the community when we took our boat and left.
Make a trip there to eat at «The Chowder Barge»! Don’t take my word for it, read about them on Unilocal,as of today they have 97 reviews and average over 4.5 stars. Yes, simple food, but WOW!
Yes, it is in an industrial area, trains go by all day long, and it is up the river a ways from the ocean gate. All the facilities were well maintained, and the bathroom and showers were clean. There was adequate parking every time we showed up, and we showed up several times a day for a few weeks preparing the boat to move to its new home.
In the end, we miss a lot about the camaraderie of Leeward Bay Marina.