Depart: Alligator River anchorage 7:45
Arrive: Oriental Marina, Oriental, NC 3:45
Distance: 68 nm
Having a few chores to do that required a visit to land, we opted to stay in Oriental, NC. We needed to visit a grocery store, put water in our tanks, and find a pump out station. Having seen my posts on Facebook, Ralph, from "Mazel Tug", knew we were on our way and contacted us to say we should stop by to visit.
On prior trips up and down the coast, we have traveled up the Neuse River to New Bern to stay for a few days and visit. This year, with the devastation from Hurricane Florence, we decided not to make that 20 mile long side trip. Having seen pictures of this beautiful town on the news during the storm, we thought we would give the town time to recover a bit before we came back.
We rose early for another long and chilly day on the water. Clark took a picture of the not-so-spectacular sunrise to prove it!
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| Sunrise at Alligator Creek Anchorage |
We had a bit of a mishap on today's' trip. Clark read on Active Captain about an obstruction in the center of the channel along a section of our trip. As we approached this section, Clark tried to determine which side of the channel would be best to avoid hitting the object hidden in the water. He saw a sign up ahead in the area of concern and got out his binoculars to try to read the sign.
I, in theory, had control of the helm as I sat at the wheel. However, I fully expected Clark to be back in a second to steer as he always does. I began to say that I was uncomfortable with how close we were to the edge of the waterway on the port side when wham we hit ground hard. What a sickening feeling! My first thought was to run below to check for water pouring into the bottom of the boat, so I went and opened a hatch below to give a cursory check. Thankfully I saw no water coming into the bilge.
The problem of course would be getting off as we found ourselves stuck quite firmly. Clark worked the bow and stern thrusters to no avail. The boat did not budge. Given the thumps and bumps I heard as we hit, I wondered what damage we would suffer trying to get off. If we had to call Sea Tow, how would they even get us out of there?
Clark tried backing off and heard some bumps as we hit things underwater. He stopped. Then later, with no other option open for consideration, he decided to try again with a bit more power. The strong props did the job, and he backed us off and fully floating again.
Once we got underway and closer to the sign, I could not help thinking how ironic it was that under the large-sized word DANGER, it read "shoaling" in fine print. All I could think is "Now you tell us." He left me to pilot the boat while he went to take an inventory of potential damage and look for leaks. When he came back, he reported that he could see nothing suspicious.
I had been terribly chilly before the incident. With the adrenaline flowing, I no longer felt cold!
Fortunately we had no other misadventures along our day-long travels. As we came to the Neuse River and made our way towards Oriental, NC, where we planned to stay the night, we saw a number of fishing vessels.
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| Fishing Boats at Dock |
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| Fishing Boat on the Neuse River |
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| Looks so impressive with the late day lighting! |
As we approached Oriental, we finally decided to make our stop be Oriental Marina and made a reservation there. That was a good decision, as when we arrived in port, we found no available space on the free docks. We wanted to take advantage of the pump out station on the free dock. Even though a sign said "Pump Out Only", a sailboat was tied there for the night. Given that, we decided to just dock and worry about the pump out in the morning.
Once our lines were secured, we jumped on our bicycles for a quick trip to the supermarket to get some items. What a disappointment the Piggly Wiggly is in this town. They had aisles of beverages including beer, wine, liquor, soda, and water, lots of unhealthy food, and almost nothing I came for. That made packing the backpack for the trip back to the boat easy! Half the items I wanted were still on my list when we left.
As soon as we got the food stowed on board, we both headed to the showers. It felt good to get a shower with no worries about using too much water or running out of hot water. Given a planned visit from Ralph, I rushed to get dinner on the table as soon as I got back on board. I did not quite make it, however, as Ralph came while I was still cooking. After a quick tour of the boat, Ralph sat with us while we ate. He declined the invite to join us for dinner as he had already eaten.
Oriental Marina is decorated for Halloween mostly with pumpkins but with some other items as well.
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| Halloween decoration at Oriental Marina, NC |
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| View of Oriental Marina and Inn Note carved pumpkins along the railings |
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| Walkway to the street beside the slips at Oriental Marina |
After Ralph left us, we had a quiet evening on board watching some television and working on the blog. Time got away from me, and I was up past midnight tonight. What a long day!
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