NC: Dowry Creek Marina - Belhaven

Day 341
NM Today: 43
NM To Date: 5445

We left River Dunes in Oriental, North Carolina at 9:20. Before leaving the dock, however, Clark grabbed some pictures to remember our time here.

Houses located near River Dunes Marina in Oriental, NC

Main Building (Club House) at River Dunes Marina

We traveled five and one-half hours today. The scenery has become somewhat repetitious. I decided that to pass some time this morning I would modify a dress that I bought when I was home in New Jersey. The top of the dress has smocking which I discovered irritates my back as it rubs against my skin. I sewed a lining into the dress which thankfully fixed the problem. That project took about an hour.

After that I did my normal things - read, did crossword puzzles, made lunch, etc. We arrived at Dowry Creek Marina in Belhaven, North Carolina just around 3:00 and were greeted by no less than three people who diligently assisted us with tying up at the dock.

The list of this marina's amenities included a pool, and unlike yesterday when we were threatened by lightening storms, today the radar showed no signs of inclement weather. As soon as we could get ready, we ran up and jumped in the pool to cool off.

Pool and Lounge at Dowry Marina

When we docked, we were told that happy hour is held in the captain's lounge every day around 5:30. We later heard that today happy hour would start at 6:00. We wrapped up our time in the pool early enough that we could grab showers before joining the group at the lounge. The marina offers free laundry facilities, so I took advantage of this to dry my pool towels before joining Clark at the lounge.

Meeting fellow boaters during happy hour in the lounge
at Dowry Creek Marina
(I'm wearing the dress I modified earlier in the day)

The folks at the end of the table convinced Clark to go get his guitar and serenade them for a while. He came back with his music and his guitar and a slight problem. Somehow the combination lock on the guitar case got locked accidentally, and Clark could not remember the combination to break into his guitar case.

This bizarre situation was met with much heckling and hilarity as he struggled to get to his guitar. One kind person suggested that he had a "saws all" that could quickly take care of the problem. Clark managed to get into his case finally by trying all number combinations until he got to the one that worked. I thought it would take all night but he got lucky.

Clark playing guitar in the Captain's Lounge

 Clark quickly made a new friend due to his guitar playing expertise. Nancy has a great voice and joined Clark to sing along as he played. Besides having a great singing voice, Nancy is quick witted and continuously came out with remarks that made us all laugh. One of the lines in the Bob Dylan song "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" says " ... Buy me a flute And a gun that shoots ,,,: , so Nancy says, "He must be shopping at Walmart cause that's where he can get both of those things together!"

Somehow Nancy figured out that Clark was an engineer. I can't imagine how she managed to peg him as such. Several times through the night she referred to him as a "gear head", which I found hysterical. When they sang a duet, she said they were "the Gear Head and the Queer Head". She later told Clark he was "an awesome musical tool" after he had been playing one song after another non-stop for several hours.

Nancy and Clark sharing music
(She has a wonderful voice and way of singing. It was great fun
listening to their concert.)

 Eventually Nancy decided to go get her guitar, so we had two performers going strong tonight. I don't know how long happy hour normally lasts at this marina, but Clark and Nancy played and sang until 10:30 when I finally told Clark we needed to go get supper. The chips and pretzels I ate were insufficient to make a meal!

Nancy performs the blues

Below is a video clip showing a portion of one of the many, many songs these two performed throughout the night.

I had something planned for dinner, but given we did not get back to the boat until almost 11:00, I quickly changed my mind and just pulled out a hodgepodge of leftovers. After dinner I had a choice of going to bed, doing the dishes, or working on the blog. The blog won and bed came in at second place. The dishes will have to wait until we are underway tomorrow.

NC: Oriental - River Dunes Marina

Day 340
NM Today: 33
NM To Date: 5403

We left the New Bern Grande Marina precisely at 8:30 with hopes that we could make another magical bridge opening.  It did not happen. The bridge was closed. The vertical clearance marked on the bridge when we came into New Bern yesterday showed 17 feet. We need just under 16 feet of clearance, so we decided to see if we could "squeeze" under the bridge.

We lowered the antennas and the folding mast to get to our lowest height. As we approached the bridge, I stepped up onto the bench seat to peer over the Bimini top. I told Clark it looked to be the closest I have ever seen as far as a tight fit but I thought we could make it. Clark ran back and took a quick look over the top and said "Oh yeah! We'll be fine."

As he took the helm though he asked me to take another look to be sure, but I was already standing on the bench seat watching the bridge approach prepared to duck if need be. We were fine. In fact we had about 18 inches to spare. Now we have another bridge experience to add to our repertoire of successful close encounters.

Our travel plans for the day were uncertain due to the weather forecast. We had two choices - River Dunes Marina at about 35 nautical miles or Bellhaven about 40 nautical miles further. The longer trip would place us at our end point at around 4:00 p.m. Unfortunately thunderstorms were predicted to come into the picture some time after 2:00.

We reached Oriental and the River Dunes marina at 1:00. Having traveled for several hours and seeing a storm system approaching from the west, we decided that we would stop here for the night instead of continuing on. Overall the travel day had been rather uninteresting with two exceptions.

First, as I was busy reading my novel, Clark suddenly yelled out "Oooooo YUCK!" When I looked over to see what he was complaining about, I found that a bird had bombed us and the result had landed on the bench seat as well as Clark's bare leg. The yuck part was his disgust at wearing the deposit from the bird. I had a couple of napkins in my pocket, so I cleaned him and the seat off. I then went down and got a wet rag to wash his leg and the seat. All better!

Later Clark seemed fascinated by the numerous, straight trees along the waterway. He took three pictures to be sure one turned out for the blog. In fact these were the only three pictures he took during today's voyage. That fact alone gives a rather large clue as to the overall excitement of the trip.

Very Straight Trees along the ICW in North Carolina

River Dunes marina and the associated Grace Harbor Club provide a modern dock, clubhouse, and washroom facilities. A pool is also available for our use, but with the predicted thunderstorms we did not take advantage of the opportunity.

We took a brief walk around the area, which consists of, what appear to be, a number of very large, single-family homes. It is hard to describe my feelings about this place. Everything seemed perfect - new houses, new docks, beautiful clubhouse, ... However, it seemed rather bizarre as a whole because for all the homes, etc., we saw a minimal number of people - just the two marina staff and one three-person family at one of the homes. Everything else appeared deserted. Perhaps it is a case of "if you build it, they will come"?

As we walked around we passed a church. Neither of us could tell if it was an old, restored church or a new building built to look like an old, restored church. Whichever the case, it was beautiful to look at. Earlier we saw a truck advertising the owner's expertise at constructing new "historic" buildings thus our dilemma.

Church by the  River Dunes Marina -
new or old?

We spent most of today on the boat waiting for the thunderstorms that never arrived. About dinner time we did get some rain but without the lightening and thunder we had been promised. I took advantage of the lazy day to take a nap. After dinner we watched a real old movie on television - "Houseboat" with Cary Grant and Sophia Loren. Clark had never seen this old classic.

NC: New Bern - Bears

Day 339
June 27, 2016
NM Today: 7
NM to Date: 5369

We had a very short trip today from the home of our friends on Mazel Tug into the city of New Bern, North Carolina. At 10:30 we waved goodbye to Ralph and Linda

Ralph and Linda from Mazel Tug

and made our way through the waters of Fairfield Harbour before heading on our way to New Bern.

Gorgeous Waters of Fairfield Harbour near New Bern, NC

As we move along the ICW I have been reading little blurbs about the segments of the waterway in a cruise guide for the ICW. One entry described the dark brown waters in North Carolina being similar in color to root beer or strong tea. Tannin naturally found in the water here makes the water brown.

I noticed looking off the back of Sea Moss today that we were stirring up "root beer".  This tannin leaves a not-so-lovely "mustache" on the bow of boats traveling up the ICW. Through our travels, we have already acquired a mustache on Sea Moss; this can only make it more pronounced.

Brown Wake comes from Tannin in Water

We had perfect timing as we came into the city of New Bern. A sailboat arrived at the bridge requiring an opening shortly before us. By the time we got there, the bridge was going up and we sailed right through!

We arrived at our marina for the night shortly after passing through the bridge opening. As we rounded the corner, we saw a train crossing a railroad bridge. Fortunately we did not have to wait for this bridge to open since our marina was situated before it.

Train crossing railroad bridge

When we pulled into the marina, our friends on Dream Catcher, Pat and Dick, were there to greet us and help us tie up in our slip for the night. A primary reason for coming to this town and this marina was to see Dick to return his jacket that we recovered for him from a restaurant in St. Augustine, Florida. No sooner did we get ourselves tied up than we handed him his jacket.

Dick offered that he had a car at his disposal and said he could take us to get provisions. We got together right after lunch for an outing to Walmart and a Harris Teeter grocery store. When we arrived at Walmart, we saw our first New Bern Bear. Bern means Bear, and bears appear throughout New Bern.

Walmart Bear in New Bern, NC

After our shopping spree, we agreed with Dick that we would meet up with him again for a walk around town after putting the perishable foods away. Town was close enough that we did not need to use the car to explore town. Dick's wife Pat and her friend from Michigan, Kim, joined us for our tour of town. For our first stop we went to the old-time hardware store in town, Mitchell Hardware, where we saw another bear. This one was named "Mitch".

"Mitch" - Hometown Hardware Bear

 For a relatively small retail space the store was packed with goodies.

Mitchell Hardware

 When we walked outside and looked at the store window, we found a hardware history quiz of ten questions. The only object I recognized was a flat iron. the object that we all found the most interesting was the "pig oiler".

Mitchell Hardware - History Quiz

Continuing our tour of town, we came to the Birthplace of Pepsi Cola. Caleb Bradham, a pharmacist at a corner drug store, created "Brad's Drink" in the 1800s which became known as Pepsi Cola after 1898.

Corner Drugstore- Birthplace of Pepsi

Pepsi Ad on Wall of Store

Original Pepsi Recipe

When we left the Pepsi museum / store, Dick, Pat and their friend Kim went off to find a beer, and Clark and I continued our exploration of the city. We decided to visit Tryon Palace since Ralph and Linda specifically mentioned this site as a must-see spot in town.

On our way there we found the "Bill of Rights" Bear.

"Bill of Rights" Bear in New Bern, NC

Using Google directions we made our way to Tryon Palace. When Google said we had arrived at our destination, I could see no palace - just a very large brick building that was not very impressive. It turned out to be the Tryon Palace museum - not the palace itself.

The facility closed at 5;00 and it was already after 4:00. The last tour of the palace left at 4:00, so that was not an option. We really only wanted to see the exterior today anyway, so we asked where the actual palace was located and received directions from the receptionist to walk there. Before leaving the building, Clark spied a fancy, working clock hanging on the wall.

Working Pendulum Clock at Tryon Palace Museum

 About two, very hot blocks later, we finally found the palace grounds and the palace. (The sun was out in full force even so late in the afternoon!) The palace was the name given to the governor's mansion built for Royal Governor William Tryon between 1767 and 1770. The main building was destroyed by a fire in 1798 and restored in the 1950s.

Tryon Palace - grounds

Tryon Palace - Governor's Mansion

Many houses in this neighborhood date to the late 1700s and early 1800s. In our wanderings we noted several including the Jones House, which in 1862, was used as a jail to hold Confederate sympathizers after the Union won the Battle of New Bern.

Jones House - c. 1809

We later found a sign for Stanly House saying basically "Washington slept here", but we had trouble finding the house itself.

I finally pulled out the map provided by the Tryon Palace museum receptionist and found the house was around the corner and down the block.

Stanly House c. 1783

Stanly House - gardens

No visit to a city on the Great Loop would be complete without a stop at an ice cream shop. We stopped at the Cow Cafe before heading back to the boat. Almost all the ice cream flavors had the word "cow" or "moo" built into the name like chocowlate and moo-nilla.

On the way back to the boat we saw one last bear - the Coldwell Banker Homes Bear in front of the local real estate office.

"Honey, I'm Home" Coldwell Real Estate Bear

 As we reached the docks, we saw Nancy from Tug Lee Loo who invited us to visit their new boat. Cary gave us a grand tour of their lovely new boat. Afterwards we met up with our other looper friends in town for dinner at The Chelsea restaurant. Delicious!

Looper Dinner at The Chelsea in New Bern, NC
Pat and Dick from Dream Catcher (with Pat's friend Kim),
Nancy and Cary from Tug Lee Loo,
Ralph and Linda from Mazel Tug (they drove in to join us), and
Clark and Ev from Sea Moss (Clark took the picture)
Cheers!

All our looper friends tried very hard to convince us to stay in town through the fourth of July, but Clark is anxious to move on towards the Chesapeake. Unless the weather is prohibitive, we will be back on our way again in the morning.

NC: Fairfield Harbour - home cooked dinner

Day 338
June 26, 2016
NM Today: 30
NM To Date: 5362

I knew we should have hosed down the boat when we got into Beaufort, but the predicted weather called for rain and severe thunder storms. I figured that the rain would wash off any residual salt from our trip into Beaufort. Well, at most we got sprinkles and even that would have been a stretch to call it that, so when we left Beaufort this morning we started out with a somewhat salty boat.

We were in no rush to leave this morning as we planned to arrive at a fellow looper's house for the evening after 4:00. Before we left Clark had a bit of a run-in with the fellow sharing our finger dock. Apparently Clark interrupted his morning fishing. I gather that, in disgust, he left a deposit on the dock as he vacated the area for a less-crowded fishing experience.

Clark gets "the look" for disturbing this guy's morning fishing activity

I particularly like the second picture of the egret. It seems like a perfect example of a picture Jane of Jammin Jane would like to go with the ones of other birds I painted for her.  Maybe I should get my paints out and give it a try!

Clark said we would leave between 10:30 and 11:00, so I wandered off to take a shower. When I came back from my shower at 9:40; however, he was already to leave to catch the 10:30 bridge opening, so we pulled in our lines and took off a little earlier than anticipated.

Shortly after we left the dock, I was down below taking care of some post-departure activities. When I looked up, I saw that, like magic, as we approached the bridge, it immediately started to go up. The bridge was just about 5 minutes away from the dock, and Clark had called ahead to the bridge tender who said she would open the bridge when she saw him. True to her word it opened as soon as he came into her line of sight and we sailed right through. Nice! We didn't even have to slow the engines to wait at all.

Before leaving the Beaufort area, Clark decided to fill up with fuel. We stopped at Jarrett Bay Boatyard since he had seen on cruisersnet.net that they had a good fuel price. The price was not as good as he had seen on the net, but he decided to fill up anyway since we were right there.

The rest of the trip to our friend's dock was uneventful. It was very quiet on the water today. To get to our friend's house, we traveled waters that are not part of the ICW. On the one occasion when I took the helm to give Clark a break, he admonished me to watch the depth carefully. I never saw the depth finder go below 7.9', so no worries!

Very quiet on the water today -
Adams Creek

We arrived at Mazel Tug's dock just at 4:00 as hoped. Ralph and Linda were there to greet us when we pulled in. The most amazing part of the Great Loop has been meeting fellow loopers and other boaters along the way.  Clark and I totally enjoyed reconnecting with our boater friends over a home-cooked dinner. We had a wonderful evening talking and eating great food! Oh yes, and reconnecting with "Chewy" as well who traveled the Great Loop on Mazel Tug with Ralph and Linda.

Chewy is a Jack Russell Terrier who is very friendly and playful. In the picture below he is playing with Katie (Ralph and Linda's daughter). She is holding his toy with him in the air. As with all terriers he is tenacious enough not to let go even when no feet are touching the ground. (His friend Dexter is standing behind Katie watching the fun.)

Chewy hanging in the air by his teeth gripping
his raccoon toy!

NC: Beaufort - Farmer's Market

Day 337
No Boat Travel

Having seen all the historical sites we wanted to explore over the past two days, we decided that today we should take care of some chores. While I did the laundry at the local laundromat in the morning, Clark did trip planning.

To find the best places to visit and when to go there requires a huge amount of research. Today Clark poured over charts and online apps for hours investigating the route we should take just to go from here to Norfolk. I am so glad that he covers this aspect of our Great Loop adventure as I find the research exceedingly tedious. To say that I was happy to sit in a laundromat instead of searching out our route says a lot I think.

With nothing planned until 4:00 when we wanted to go to the farmer's market, I decided to take my latest novel and lie in bed to read. Reading did not last as long as my pursuant nap. Clark woke me just after 3:00 and by 3:30 we were on our way into town to look for the farmer's market. As we passed conflicting signs, we grew concerned that we may have missed the farmer's market. Some said 8:00 to 1:00 and some said 4:00 to 8:00. Fortunately, the latter turned out to be the correct time.

"Kid" at Goat's Milk Booth

Lots of "things" but very few vegetables at this market

Live band with banjo and washboard (woman player)

Although only one booth had vegetables, we left with our backpack loaded. I overheard the "farmer" say that the weather has been terrible for a number of their crops this year.

Besides vegetables we hoped to find a pie vendor or some other tasty dessert. We had no luck in our dessert search, so after leaving the farmer's market, we headed back towards Front Street in search of a bakery. On the way there we passed the "Old Burying Ground", peaked through the fence and decided to stroll in for a better view of the old-style graves.

Most of the graves had some type of structure built over or around it. Many of them were constructed of brick. Though most of the graves dated in the 1800s, I did see one that was as recent as 2008 and another that was dated 1951.

The grave below contains the remains of Captain Otway Burns mentioned in the graveyard historical marker as the person who deeded the burial ground property to the town. His marker showed that he fought in the war of 1812 aboard the vessel the Snap Dragon.

Captain Burns buried with a cannon

We left the cemetery just before the closing time of 5:00 when they lock the gates to the cemetery. I overheard someone say "Let's leave before we get locked in here for the night." Copy that - I'm outta here!

After exiting the cemetery we continued on our way to Front Street in search of a bakery. Clark popped into one of the stores and asked them where we might find a bakery. We were sent to The Spouter Inn where we bought some pastries. The only pies they sold were not fruit pies and did not pass Clark's test for appetizing.

The sky had come over dark, and I felt drips, so we took our loot from the farmer's market plus our pastries and headed back to the boat for dinner on board.. To make room for the pastries in the fridge I decided that tonight was leftovers night and made an effort to clean out the fridge. With no set agenda for the evening we decided to relax and watch some television.

NC: Beaufort - Historic Homes and Museums

Day 336
No Boat Travel

With the weather predicted to be unfavorable for outdoor activities later in the day, we targeted walking around town for before lunch and the maritime museum for after lunch. Our stroll of the streets brought us to an historic home with a sign out front that said "Open - Please Come In", so we decided to just poke our heads in and see what was inside.

Next thing I knew we were sucked into a house tour. A volunteer met us at the door and immediately launched into an in-depth discussion on the history of the owners of the home complete with who married who and what property they acquired as a result. After her presentation of the family history that took several minutes to complete, she asked for our "cards" so she could check her house off the list. Hmmm - we had no cards.

This particular weekend all the historic homes in Beaufort maintained by the historical society are open to the public for a fee. Obviously we had not paid the fee. She said she wouldn't tell anyone and invited us to tour the remainder of the house. We took her up on the gracious offer and viewed both the first (parlor) and second (bedrooms) floors. The third floor (children's quarters) was closed off.

Historic Home in Beaufort NC
Air conditioning vents in the chimneys keeps the home cool.

As we left the home the volunteer / hostess suggested that if we enjoyed the home, we should step across the street to buy tickets to see the rest of the houses on the tour.

We did cross the street but walked past the ticket booth to see what else was in the area. We found a home dated c. 1732 that is now an art museum.

as well as an apothecary, a smoke house, the old jail, and the old courthouse.

Old Jail c. 1829

"Locks" outside old jail

Court House c. 1831

I wanted more than a peak in the door of the jail and the courthouse, but I did not feel a need for any more presentations on who married whom in the early 1800s. We decided to pass on buying house tour tickets. We saw the exterior of many restored homes and found one example of a pre-restoration home that was in desperate need of repair.

Having completed our walk around town, we stopped by the corner deli to buy some cold meat for sandwiches and headed back to the boat for lunch. After lunch, we headed out to go to the maritime museum as planned. However, when we walked by the Fleming next door, we ended up in a lengthy conversation with the boat owner who told us about cruisersnet.net  As we talked we started to hear the noises of a small plane overhead.

The continual buzzing made us look to see what was going on. Wow! We got our own, free air show as the small plane swooped and climbed, did back flips and spins, demonstrated wing rotations, flew straight up in the air, and dropped free fall rapidly towards the ground. What faith the pilot must have in the condition of that plane to put his (or her) life on the line like that. Truly amazing show and totally unplanned and unpaid for!

Upside down stunt plane over the marina

When the plane finished its antics, and Clark concluded his conversation about cruisersnet.net, we continued on our way to the maritime museum.

Beaufort Maratime Museum

 For a free museum it had a lot to offer. Flash photography was strictly prohibited, so we did not take any pictures inside. We watched a PBS produced movie on the finding of Blackbeard the Pirate's wrecked Queen Anne's Revenge.  The museum displayed a lot of artifacts recovered from the wreck. In addition to the Blackbeard exhibits, the museum had an assortment of displays including one on rescues at sea and the coast guard and another showing a collection of historic outboard motors. Clark was excited to show me an Elgin that looked the same as one that we had in our basement until just a couple of short years ago.

After we left the museum we crossed the street where Clark saw that the shipwright museum was also open, so he rushed in to see what they had there. Interestingly they too had a display of old outboard motors.

Antique Outboards

The  boat building museum offers wooden boat building classes on weekends throughout the year. They had several boats being built or restored in the "shop".

11.5' Rocket Wooden Boat

After we left there we wandered the local area some more looking at the sights before heading back to the boat.

Front Street Beaufort, NC

The boardwalk at the Beaufort Municipal Marina

After a day spent exploring history, we decided to spend a leisurely night on the boat reading, working on the blog, and watching an old dance movie called "Tap".