We were looking forward to a week on the water. We try to schedule a week in the spring and another in the fall. These are the best times because, it seems, the weather is less extreme. This trip took us to Oriental, Beaufort and back to Whortonsville. We visited with friends and family and generally had a wonderful as well as relaxing trip. Our goal is always the same. To float, relax and return home with no major damage to the vessel or her crew.

Beaufort Pictures

Saturday October 28, 2006
It had rained all day Friday at home and at the coast but the forecast was for clearing by midday on Saturday. We delayed our departure until Saturday morning. It's a long trip so we took a novel on CD and stopped for a nice breakfast in Asheboro. When we arrived at Ensign Harbor we found that at least two of our dock mate couples had succumbed to "new boat fever". Doug and Cheryl had just arrived with their new Southern Cross that they moved from Annapolis. We were not surprised because we had been tracking their progress down the ditch and were expecting them to have arrived. Queste passed our inspection with flying colors. In my opinion she is exactly what they need for their upcoming two year cruise. She is heavy enough to stand a blow but not so big that she would be hard to handle. We could tell the crew was a little weather beaten. I'm sure it was both and adventure and an ordeal to move a boat that far, and I understand there was a fairly tight schedule. This is always true for those of us who work for a living and are not yet retired. The big surprise came when we learned that Bill and Susan had bought a new Pearson 35. We knew they were shopping but didn't know they were that close to buying. They came by the dock and invited us to go over to Oriental and take a look. A sailor will seldom pass up an opportunity to look at a sailboat no matter what the circumstances. The Pearson was in Bristol condition, and that's as good as it gets in boating terminology. She is a 1968 model but looks almost new with upgrades and modifications too numerous to mention here. Not only that, when Bill told us the price I was surprised that he wasn't in jail for boat theft. I should stop here and explain the term "new" in this context. I don't mean factory fresh, like a car. I mean new to her crew. To a sailor, a sailboat is "new" any time she changes hands. One of the nice things about sailboats is that they tend to lose value because of neglect not because of age. The Southern Cross is a mid 80s vintage and as I mentioned the Pearson is a 68 model. The "queen bee" of the harbor is a Joey's Hinckley B-40 and she is almost 50 years old. There are plenty of newer boats that don't show as well as the older ones. That is why there are so many "work weekend" spent at the dock. Back to the story...

Sunday October 29, 2006
The weatherman lied again. He said the winds were going to be 5 to 10 knots on Sunday morning. I'm not that experienced but I'd bet it was closer to 25 on the river. We started for Beaufort at about 9am. It really wasn't too bad. There were two causes for concern. First the wind was dead on our nose. This means in order to make progress we would have to tack and be close hauled all the way to Adams creek, which is about 12 mile south of our channel. The other problem was with insurance bureaucracy. We need a rider on our policy to go outside our cruising grounds. I had received guidance from a more experienced dock mate who told me that the insurance company considers the drawbridge at Beaufort the boundary between the Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. The guy on the phone at 7 o'clock Sunday morning assured me that we could arrange the rider at 9am when the underwriters got in to their office. When I called at 9:30 from my cell phone, another person assured me that there was no possibility of taking care of it until 8:30 on Monday morning. Judy looked at me, as we were crashing through a wave with the diesel running wide open, and said, "You don't appear to be having fun". I replied, "I am not and vacations are supposed to be fun". I picked up the cell and called the Oriental marina and reserved slip number 5 for the night. Oriental is a cool place to spend the night. We had coffee at the Bean (coffee shop) and a nice dinner. We turned in early so we could continue our trip to Beaufort on Monday.

Monday October 30, 2006
We woke to a spectacular day. I called the insurance company and they happily provided a rider and prepared a bill for $25.00. I was griping about it to a power boater who happened to be close by. He was planning to go to Beaufort mid week. When I told him about the insurance snafu, his reply was, "You got that phone number?" Evidently I was not the only one who didn't know where the Atlantic Ocean started. We left Oriental and headed south. Of course, there was no wind at all. At least the diesel got a good workout. We entered Adams creek less than an hour after departure. It must have been a dolphin holiday. We have seen dolphins many times in our travels but never this many. They seemed to be traveling in pods with juveniles and adults separated. The adult animals swam right beside the boat, dozens of them. We even saw them jump out of the water like the do on TV. They were so close you could touch them if you were fast enough. It was absolutely amazing! The most surprising thing was their size. They are much larger than I thought. We learned first hand they are extremely difficult to photograph. Judy chased them around for an hour with the camera on the "movie" setting. She got some short clips that I will attempt to put on line. I am amazed that she got anything. It's almost like they know they are hard to get on film and they are just playing with you.

We followed Adams creek (the ICW) for probably 20 nautical miles. According to the GPS we were going over 7.5 knots much of the time. There is a fairly strong current in the creek and that is something we "sound sailors" are not used to. I suspect the insurance companies know this as well and that may be the reason the boundary is where it is. The approach to Beaufort, like the entire trip, was beautiful. You could see the state port off to the southeast and the beaches as well. We had asked for, and received local knowledge from our more experienced dock mates so we knew which channels to stay away from. Our motor powered brothers don't have much to worry about with their outboard motors but even a modest sailboat like Southern Star can be hauling a 5-foot keel around. The idea is to keep as much water under that keel as possible. Following our mates advice we arrived at the drawbridge without incident. As luck would have it, the bridge had just opened and according to the bridge tender on VHF channel 13, we had a 30-minute wait. The good news is we had plenty of room to maneuver and the current was not bad. We took the time to explore Town Creek and it's marina. It is quite nice, probably at least as nice as the Beaufort town dock, but we wanted to be where the action is. The bridge opened at the appointed time. I have crossed many drawbridges and I can tell you that it's quite different crossing the wet end as opposed to the dry end. We got some good pictures. The journey was almost over. I had been concerned when planning the trip because I didn't see many aids to navigation (buoys) on the charts near the drawbridge and the Beaufort waterfront. There is a good reason for that. There are none. It's a deep wide channel and none are really needed. You just watch what you are doing and everything works just fine. I hailed the dock master and announced our arrival. He told me where to look for him and advised about my approach and how to allow for the current. Our landing was near perfect, and you know what they say about good landings.

We secured the boat and took off for a little exploration. We ate a hotdog lunch at the Royal James Tavern, then, Judy wanted to do a little shopping. While she was gone I deployed ol' Charlie Gibson (the dinghy). After some serious discussion we have decided that since we don't have a pet, we are going to adopt Charlie Gibson as our pet. He does not have to be walked, is very well behaved and does not bark at children. His only bad habit is his gas mileage. Wow, talk about measuring it in telephone poles per gallon. When Judy returned, we took a free harbor tour with a stop on Carrot Island. This is a lovely park just across from the waterfront. We noticed the lack of people and soon discovered the "no see um" issue. They didn't attack until we had been there for a few minutes. Retreat was the only option. We motored around for a while looking at the snowbirds and returned to Southern Star where Judy prepared a nice dinner. Our on the water "dark thirty" bedtime was observed.

Tuesday October 31, 2006 Halloween
Judy's parents, Bill and Mollie, are avid campers. They were camping at the local national forest during their annual salt-water fishing trip. We arranged to have them meet us at the dock for the day. Judy and her mom whet shopping and Bill and I took a dinghy ride. We met a nice cruising couple whose Catalina 34 was tied up near us. We volunteered to deliver a part that they had purchased for another boat that was moored in the creek. What a great day for a dinghy ride. I explained to Bill that dinghy travel is a bit dryer than swimming but not a lot. He was willing to take the chance so we shoved off. We went all the way from the west end of the city dock to the eastern outskirts of Beaufort up Taylors creek. The tour was continued with a trip back under the drawbridge over to Town Creek marina and back to the city dock. We only ran out of gas once. Of course that was in the middle of the channel almost under the drawbridge. At mid-day, we all climbed into Bill's big "camper toting truck" and got a fast food lunch out on the highway. We stopped at an old time hardware store where Bill purchased some essential equipment. Bill and Mollie left at about 4 pm. We enjoyed another nice dinner on the boat and turned in. I'm sure there was a Halloween party somewhere but we did not participate.

Wednesday November 1, 2006
The weatherman promised a nice day today but not so nice on Thursday. Not only that, but the Beaufort city dock is a bit pricey at 2 dollars a foot plus power. We decided to return to Whortonsville. We left Beaufort just in time to make the 8 am bridge opening. The trip north on Adams creek was much slower because the current was against us. Not only that but the dolphins must have had the day off because we did not see a single one on the return trip. The lack of activity made us appreciate the earlier encounter even more. When we got back up to the Neuse we were looking forward to a nice broad reach home, but the weatherman had overestimated wind speed and had gotten the direction wrong as well. We had a very light breeze but it was dead astern. We motored all the way back. The trip was pleasant enough. It was a beautiful day, and we were floating. What more could you want? We covered the 31.2 nautical miles in a little less than 6 hours.

Thursday November 2, 2006
The weather did not close in as fast as predicted. We woke to a nice clear day with a fair breeze. Since we have been boating on the coast we have found that traveling to a foreign port does not always mean that you get to sail. More often than not, there is either no wind, too much wind or it's from a direction that will not let you arrive at your destination before dark. If you want to go sailing, the best thing to do is just that, go sailing. We left the Broad Creek channel and started for the NR mark, which is probably 2 miles away. We sailed for a few hours and the promised wind speed increase began. We knew we didn't have much time before the weather got heavy but we really wanted at least a little time under sail. Back at the dock, we relaxed and for a while before we took part in another mini-adventure. We took ol' Charlie Gibson over to Paradise Cove Marina to get a bag of ice. Unfortunately, they were out of ice so we returned to the dock and traveled into town for the elusive frozen water. Judy prepared a dinner that included baked corn muffins. Corn muffins are not a bid deal at home with an electric range, but they are a big deal when you are using an alcohol-stove oven.

Friday November 3, 2006
At my suggestion, Friday was shopping day. I offered to take Judy down to Swansboro to do some Christmas shopping. Swansboro is a neat little village with numerous gift and antique shops. I enjoyed the ferry ride and when we arrived I strolled around town, stopped for coffee, explored the waterfront and relaxed with a magazine while she shopped. As you may have guessed I'm not much of a shopper. We finished back at
Beaufort and decided to give our dock mates, Bill and Susan a call. They have a new house (to go along with their new boat) inland a ways, and they had asked us several times to come and visit. Our intent was to take them out to dinner but they insisted on preparing a meal. They also insisted that we spend the night. It took longer than I thought to make the trip from Beaufort but we were only a little late. We had a delicious meal and a great visit. I got all the details about the new boat and the house. We stayed up long past our bedtime but had a wonderful time.

Saturday November 4, 2006
We took Bill and Susan out for breakfast at a local restaurant. The sausage was just way too good. The next stop was New Bern for some shopping at the Presbyterian Church. They had advertised a 10,000 Villages sale sponsored by the women's organization. Judy bought some neat items for Christmas gifts. We returned to the boat and evaluated the situation. It was about noon and there was little activity at the dock. The weather was pleasant but cool. We decided to prepare the boat for the next trip and strike out for home. We left at about 2 pm and arrived home about 5 hours later. We accomplished our "prime directive" once again. We spent a week on the water with no major damage to the vessel or the crew.

Beaufort Pictures

Dolphins Video Story