NC: Town Creek Marina Beaufort to New Bern Grand Marina

Thursday 4/26/2018

Depart: Beaufort, NC Town Creek Marina 2:15

Arrive: New Bern Grand Marina 7:00

Distance: 38 nm

We spent the morning and part of the afternoon at Town Creek Marina.

Town Creek Marina & City Kitchen Restaurant

The engine repair work started late yesterday afternoon continued through the morning and into the afternoon. While we waited to see if we would be able to travel to New Bern today, Clark made travel plans B and C as backup plans. All plans included us departing from Beaufort and heading for New Bern. The only question remained “how far can we get?”

While Clark kept the mechanic company in the engine room, I took care of various boat-cleaning related jobs in the morning. After lunch, I pulled out my art journal and practiced drawing. Linda from Ramble On suggested Youtube.com, so I followed along with some teaching sessions I found there. I decided to start with sessions designed to teach kids how to draw and work up from there.

Chihuahua Drawing

Clark said that 2:00 was our “drop dead” time for making New Bern before dark. The time kept ticking by, and it looked less and less likely we would be in New Bern tonight. Just at 2:00, however, Clark came to me and announced that we could leave and New Bern still held first place as our destination for the night.

I scrambled to put away my art supplies and my laptop, so I could assist with lines. Clark adjusted the lines for departure as we normally do, but the wind / current (I do not know which) did not cooperate with the quick release I normally manage. The boat quickly pulled away from the dock and left me struggling to release the lines. Fortunately, a woman from a nearby boat offered to help, and I lunged at her offer. She got us off the dock, and I told her as we pulled away, “Thanks! You prevented a divorce from happening!”

For mid-afternoon I found the amount of boat traffic pretty amazing. Clark asked me to pilot while he took care of some things. I felt comfortable until we came upon a number of slower-than-us sailing vessels in a narrow channel. I figured we needed to pass, but I felt unsure of the water depths. When Clark could focus on piloting, I quickly handed over the helm.

Besides a number of sailboats, we had a fishing boat being towed up ahead. To make matters worse, the towed fishing boat kept weaving to and fro - mostly to port - at unexpected times. Getting around all the traffic seemed quite challenging, and I was very happy to have Clark in control.

Fishing Boat “ Captain Caden” from Toms River, NJ
(how exciting to see a "neighbor" on the water)

Fishing Boat Being towed
by “Dead Cow” Towing

“Dead Cow” Vessel named
Almost Damn Near Anything
(I guess that's what he will answer to!)

We calculated the travel time for the ~40 nm trip to New Bern to be five hours at 8 knots. Dealing with all the slow traffic and waiting for a safe area to pass, we moved at only 4.5 knots. Eventually we got past the congested area and could continue at our own pace. Even so, we had slow-speed areas where we encountered floating docks, boat ramps, and such.

New Bern is a side trip off the ICW on the Neuse River. From Beaufort, we traveled Adams Creek and made a sharp left turn when we reached the Neuse River.  Our travel path very nearly resembled a sideways letter “J” as we first went north then northeast and finally northwest.

Entering the Neuse River, we found “Captain Potter”.

Captain Potter

With very little other traffic on the Neuse River, and with the Auto Pilot piloting the boat along a preset route, travel became rather boring.  Clark said, “You know you are bored when you start looking for patterns in the clouds.” He did find a rather interesting one.

I thought this cloud formation looked
like an “eye” looking back at us.

Since we traveled in a somewhat westerly direction, we had the sun in our face. Eventually I had to move to a shadier spot. Even though the sun sat low in the sky, I still felt my skin heating up, and I wore no sunscreen to protect it. 

The sun reflecting on the water can be very pretty.

Sailboat on Sparkling Neuse River

It felt like it took forever to travel the river to New Bern. Clark checked his calculations on expected arrival time a few times, and each time he came up with 6:45. With some areas of current in our favor and some pushing up on the throttle, he had made up the time we lost at the beginning of our journey. 

As we made our final approach into New Bern, Clark gave me the helm and grabbed the camera to get a few bridge shots.

Views from under the Highway 17 bridge in New Bern, NC

Afterwards, Clark made a quick trip down below. While he was gone, I got a call from the East Front Street bridge asking if we required an opening. I responded that we did, so by the time Clark came back, the bridge tender had already started his bridge-opening procedures for us.

Late-day Opening of the
East Front Street Bridge, New Bern, NC

Since we arrived after “closing” hours for the marina, no staff came to help us dock. Fortunately, we had a wide slip and calm conditions. The two of us easily got ourselves docked and set up. Clark received the WiFi, dock-gate, and restroom codes while underway, so we were all set for the night.

I threw together a quick spaghetti dinner for supper. Desperate for a trip to the food market, I had little choice in the matter.  Fortunately, we both enjoy spaghetti and meatballs. Before he would sit down to eat, however, Clark insisted on capturing the sunset picture of the day. Tonight we had a rather good sunset for a change.

Sunset at New Bern Grand Marina