NC: New Bern to Oriental Free Dock

Wednesday 5/2/2018

Depart: New Bern Grand Marina 9:15

Arrive: Oriental Free Dock 12:15

Distance: 24 nm

We paid for a week at the New Bern Grand marina to get the weekly rate, but with the battery work completed, Clark decided to leave a day early. He said, “We should take advantage of the nice weather!” His plan for our next travels take us to the Outer Banks of North Carolina – a place I have never been before. To break up the trip, we decided to stop at the free dock in Oriental – another place we have never stopped before.

Before leaving the marina, we moved the boat to the pump-out dock to get a fresh start on the holding tank situation. We started the pump-out at 9:00 and by 9:15 we were on our way. Wow! That was fast! With calm waters, the Neuse River once again proved to be quite boring – boring can be a good thing! The most excitement we had was seeing the Cherry Branch – Minnesott Beach Free Ferry crossing the river. This ferry connects Craven County to Pamlico County.

Highway Bridge at New Bern

Clark loves interesting structures 

Cherry Branch – Minnesott Beach Free Ferry

Oriental has two public, i.e. free, docks for overnight use up to 48 hours. Clark worried that, since it is a first-come-first-served dock, that we might be out of luck when we got there. Coming into the dock, we saw that one side was already occupied. We took the other side.

After tying up, we discovered that the boaters on the neighboring dock are Loopers from Long Island – Port Jefferson specifically. Their boat name is Manatee. A fellow, current looper pulled into the last remaining free-dock space. They appeared to be from Canada (based on the flag they flew). We learned that the Canadians and the folks on Manatee have traveled the loop together since somewhere around Illinois. Having not seen each other in a while, they had a lot of catching up to do. We did not see much of them after initial introductions.

Manatee
Docked at Public Dock in Oriental, NC

Second of Two Free Docks in Oriental

We registered by filling out an index card with boat name and such and then went to check out the restroom facilities.

Spotless and Functional Public Restrooms at Docks

As we did when we were on the Great Loop, we pulled out our bicycles to tour the town. It felt like old times! For our first stop, we visited the local Piggly Wiggly to buy a few groceries that are already depleted from Saturday’s mammoth shopping trip (bread, lettuce, and fruit). We took the back roads to Piggly Wiggly since Google Maps said it was the most direct route.

After that, we were free to explore.

Scenic Route to Piggly Wiggly Food Store

The town of Oriental was originally called Smith's Creek. A name board from a vessel SS Oriental washed up on the beach. The founder's wife decided that the sign was a "sign" that they should rename the town, and the town adopted that name going forward. With a name like Oriental, they also decided to make their town mascot the Dragon! We found a couple examples around town.

Dragon beside Piggly Wiggly Parking Lot

Sign Reads "Patrons of the Dragon" and
gives a list of names

We found the town’s history museum. Since it only opens on the weekend, we could not step inside. They did, however, provide walking-tour guides for the town, so we took the three brochures offered to learn a little about the cute town.

Scenery in Oriental, NC

One of the most interesting buildings we saw was a house that used to be the City Hall and Fire Station. The current owner of the home stood outdoors and gave us a bit of history. In the 1950s, someone purchased the building to use as their home, removed the wide door used by the fire truck, and replaced it with a wall and front porch.

Oriental Old City Hall and Fire Station

The building next door was the old Light Plant.  In 1933, after electrical power came into full swing, the town converted the Light Plant into a jail.

Oriental Light Plant 1917

On our bike travels, we saw a marina consignment shop. Of course, we could not resist going into the old, musty place and digging around for treasures. We found none on this trip – maybe next time!  Further on into town, we found a well-stocked marine supply store. We could not think of anything we needed, so we exited there empty-handed as well.

For our final stop on our bike tour, we visited the ice cream shop directly across from the free, public docks. What an ideal location they have to grab any newcomers visiting the area. Besides ice cream they sold coffee, bagels, muffins, and cookies – pretty much, something for everyone.

"The Bean" Ice Cream Shop

As we set up our bikes for our town tour, our neighbors on Manatee  set off on foot to see the town and visit the West Marine store. When we got to the Marine Consignment store, we found them there. Later, when we arrived at the ice cream shop, who did we see but someone from Manatee. It seemed like we were stalking them, and in such a small town, there was nowhere they could hide.

We discovered that we could just barely get the ice cream store's open WiFi signal from our boat due to our WiFi booster. It worked poorly but was better than nothing. I worked on my blog updates to take advantage of the signal. Sadly, WiFi went away when the store closed. The blog would have to wait for another day.

Our television stations change with every stop since we use over-the-air TV. Sometimes we get a nice variety of channels, sometimes we get no stations at all, and usually it is somewhere in between. Our selection at Oriental fell short. Besides having only a few stations to choose from, the programs offered left much to be desired. We decided to save battery power and shut it off for the night.

With no internet and no television, in conjunction with a lack of sleep last night due to a 4:00 a.m. allergy attack, I decided to go to bed at “Looper Midnight” and went to bed shortly after 9:00. This I never do!