Depart: Pungo Creek Anchorage 7:30 a.m.
Arrive: Upper Broad Creek Anchorage off Neuse River 2:20 p.m.
Distance: 60 NM
Long trip on damp, foggy day. No pictures along the way. No remarkable events.
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| Yacht Club at entrance to Upper Broad Creek off the Neuse River near New Bern, NC |
Wednesday 11/8/2017
Depart: Upper Broad Creek Anchorage 7:50 a.m.
Arrive: New Bern Grand Marina 9:05 a.m.
Distance: 7 NM
We anchored near New Bern the night before to make an early arrival into the town. Once again we had a foggy day - worse than the day before.
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| Foggy Day on the Neuse River New Bern, NC |
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| Fixed-height Bridge near New Bern, NC |
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| Drawbridge near New Bern Grand Marina (Courtyard located at Marina in background) |
We have Looper friends that live in New Bern, so we took the side trip into town for a visit. Pat from Dream Catcher graciously offered to drive us to the grocery store for provisioning. Since a car ride to the store meant I did not have to limit the weight of my groceries to fit in a backpack, I stocked up. In particular I replenished my meat supply. It took me a long time to store my bounty mostly due to the prep required to repackage the meat I purchased into meal-sized freezer packages.
We scheduled dinner with Pat and Dick from Dream Catcher for 6:00. Since we had some time before our planned get together, Clark and I walked into town and strolled the streets. Already New Bern has put up lights throughout town for the upcoming holiday season, so we enjoyed the decorations.
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| New Bern lit up ready for the holiday season |
After browsing a few shops in town, we headed over to Captain Ratty's Steak and Seafood restaurant. We arrived quite early. Fortuitously, my son, Chris, called to say hello, so we had a lovely chat until our friends came to join us. We thoroughly enjoyed good food and conversation with our friends, but all too soon it was time to head back to the boat for the night and prepare to continue our trip south.
Thursday 11/9/2017
Depart: New Bern Grand Marina 11:00
Arrive: Portside Marina in Morehead City, NC 4:45
Distance: 39 NM
Today's forecast calls for rain! Ugh! Although we were up and about early, we had a number of tasks to complete before leaving the marina this morning. We needed to have our holding tank pumped out and our drinking-water tank filled. The earliest we could get the marina crew to do the pump out was 8:30. Clark decided to do that first and then fill the water tank afterwards. To do the pump out we had to move our boat to the pump-out / "Z" dock. After the pump out, we moved the boat back to "B" dock by the slip we had overnight so Clark could fill the water tanks.
The water tanks are large and take a long time to fill. By the time we had accomplished these two time-consuming chores, it was 11:00 before we finally left the dock. Before we threw off the lines, Clark called the bridge to verify that they would be able to open for us. With that confirmation, we dropped our lines and set off.
By the time we left New Bern, the light sprinkle of rain had turned into a steady stream. Even though the weather app on my phone showed the rain stopping midday, it continued all day long fluctuating from light rain to steady rain. With the dismal weather, we had an ugly trip on the Neuse River. The rain made piloting the boat on the upper helm with the full enclosure open extremely unpleasant. Rain collecting on the closed front panel of the enclosure seriously reduced visibility.
Clark decided to drive from the pilot house for a change. He has never done that before, so it was a new experience. We had some difficulty transferring throttle / speed control from one helm to the other; otherwise, we found it to be a good experience and certainly much better than struggling with the poor visibility and damp weather when above.
The brightest part of our trip came after we rejoined the ICW when we passed some very colorful houses on the canal. The first house I noticed sported a bright turquoise color with red trim. It stood out among all the more-typically colored houses. Shortly thereafter, I spied a lime-green house. Normally I would flinch at such a color choice, but the trim did not clash with the siding, and colorful sea-life decorations added a nice touch. Unfortunately, I was at the lower helm and the camera sat at the upper helm, so the only picture opportunity to come along while I had the camera in hand was a bright yellow house. Of the three, I much preferred the lime green!
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| Colorful house on the way to Beaufort, NC |
Clark gave me Beaufort, NC as our destination for the night numerous times, so when we stopped for "Discount Fuel" in Beaufort, I thought our marina must be just around the corner. We took on 300 gallons of diesel and left the fuel dock around 3:45. Shortly afterwards, Clark called the marina. I assumed he planned to tell them of our imminent arrival and was dismayed to hear that we would not be arriving there until later than originally estimated - 4:45. What!?
Finally, just after 4:30 we approached the marina passing a some working ships nearby.
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| Two Tugs at Work |
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| Container Ship being Off-loaded at the dock |
Three dockhands greeted us upon our arrival at Portside Marina and had us tied up in no time. The dockmaster recommended a trip into town for dinner only two blocks away. Unfortunately, the rain refused to give us a break and made a trip into town less than appealing. To see our location versus town center, I pulled up my Google Maps app. To my surprise, I found us located in Morehead City and not Beaufort! Now the time it took to travel from the fuel dock to our stop for the night made a lot more sense!
I planned to cook on board tonight, so with the nasty weather, we decided not to walk into town. I spent the night updating the blog while watching reruns of "Blue Bloods" on ion TV.
Colder weather is on the way, so we will be staying at marinas the next couple of nights to have electricity for heat.
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