I awoke at 4:30 AM on October 30th. I was ready for a good breakfast, so I cooked bacon, eggs, and hash browns. We got underway by 6:04 AM, before sunrise. Cruisers call this time before sunrise or after sunset, "O dark 30".
As we motored down the Pungo River at O dark 30 there was a wonderful low fog.
From the flying bridge was this glorious sunrise.
This is why cruising is so wonderful:
Quote: "There is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." -- Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame.
The seagulls thought we were a fishing boat and began to congregate around our stern.
And then at 7:30 AM three Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) joined us in the Pungo River, playing in our bow wave. Taking their picture is very difficult to do. One dolphin is cresting the water on the left and you can see its blowhole open. The other two are under water.
We then passed Currituck Point and crossed the Pamlico River, a very large river. Then up Goose Creek and a bit of canal and we arrived at the quaint fishing village of Hobucken, NC. Here are some of the boats of their shrimp fishing fleet.
We then plied the Bay River into the Neuse River, another very large river. Back in a canal again, this area is called Seagate, a development just north of Core Creek, NC. I really liked the feel of this area, where each house had their own dock, but things were not glitzy like in Southern Florida.
As we headed for the coast via the Newport River, we were joined by another Tursiops truncatus. I had thought we would not see dolphins until Florida, but here they were in North Carolina in fairly cool waters!
When we broke out at the coast we arrived at the pair of cities, Beaufort and Morehead City, NC. Our first sight at Morehead City was this large freighter. What is interesting about it is the orange submarine like craft angled downwards on the aft deck. It is an escape submersible. In the event of an emergency and the crew need to escape, they run down from the bridge into this craft (which is at least 25 or 30 feet long it appears), get in, close the hatches, hit the release, and it slides down and into the water! Wow. What a neat lifeboat!
We decided to go to a marina in Morehead City to try the Sanitary Market, a renowned restaurant. The restaurant has free dock space for a few boats, but by the time we arrived the spots were full, so we went to the Portside Marina.
We were greeted by the marina owner, Denard, a friend of a friend of Erich's. This place is about 50 miles SW of Ocracoke, ground zero for Hurricane Isabel the previous month. It tore the roof off of their main building, but other than that they did okay.
We walked for an hour around Morehead City. It had few supplies or stores of interest to boaters. After walking 14 blocks we got to this tiny market. Notice the large handwritten sign in the window. We wanted to buy a few specific items, but they had none of the things we were looking for. The shelves were 90% empty. It looked like a store in Russia or in some Third World country. It was depressing, and a waste of our time to walk so far, other than for the exercise of course! We walked back a different way to the marina, where Erich did some laundry.
Back at the marina we met this fisherman who had just caught some bluefish, (Pomatomus saltatrix). He was cleaning them at this marina-provided chest-height fish-cleaning table. He had a lot of blues, as he called them. He offered to give us several for dinner, but we had been cooking for ourselves for a few nights and wanted to try the Sanitary, so we politely declined. These fish live as long as 12 years and grow to be 39" and 31 pounds.
Dinner at the Sanitary market was okay. Their famous hushpuppies were not nearly as good as the ones we got at the Coinjock Marina restaurant. The Sanitary hushpuppies were long and skinny. We surmised that they need to be round balls so the center stays soft.
After a good meal we returned to the Salty Dog. Erich was dead tired and went to bed quickly. I am more of a night owl and stayed up.
About 10 PM a large 60' sailing vessel pulled in behind us. The marina had been expecting them since 4 PM, but they took a wrong turn and went aground with their 7' draft. They had to wait until 10 PM and the high tide to get off, and so I helped get their lines secured, as did Denard, the owner of the marina. Denard's wife, who we had met at the office earlier, was quite tipsy and they knew this couple that sailed in. They all went aboard and I was invited but declined. The captain of this sailboat was a Spaniard from Walla Walla, WA who had built the boat in his backyard there and who has been sailing it for the past many years. His wife hated boating and she too was quite tipsy from drink. I was sorry to see some men forcing their wives to go boating when they did not enjoy it. I did however also see a lot of women during this trip who in fact enjoyed boating more than their husbands!
Last updated: 2003.11.21.