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.
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| Very Straight Trees along the ICW in North Carolina |
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.
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| Church by the River Dunes Marina - new or old? |
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